


Heat Lightning

by NeonDaisies



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Matt being Matt and Claire trying to deal, Sex Pollen, daredevilkinkmeme prompt fill, one vague allusion to rape, skirts the edges of dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:25:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4356119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeonDaisies/pseuds/NeonDaisies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt, while out fighting the good fight as his civilian self gets attacked in the course of investigating his current case. Having lost his attackers, yet drugged to the gills, Matt stumbles over to Claire's where the sex pollen starts to take effect.</p><p>(If you're looking for a sex pollen fic without any actual sex, then this is probably the fic for you.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She thinks she hears the phone ringing. Thinks maybe it’s a dream. What it isn’t, is enough to wake her up. Not really. Her “Friday” was supposed to be an easy one, but it’d turned into a 16 hour marathon after three other nurses had called in with the crud. That Claire wakes up at all when her phone rings the second time is a miracle.

Groggy as hell and not really certain of her surroundings, she hits the call button just to shut the damn thing up. Then she lies there for a moment, arm fully extended and phone grasped loosely as she tries to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth. The person on the other end of the line is trying to get her attention, but she’s barely able to do that for herself so the other guy’s gonna have to wait.

“Wha’izit?” she slurs when she finally manages to bring her phone up to her ear.

“I’m sorry. Claire, I’m so sorry. I –” And damn, if the sound of Matt’s broken voice doesn’t sober her up immediately.

“Where are you? How bad is it?” She’s out of bed without a second thought, rooting around for pants and a bra, ready to race out into the night to wherever he is because he doesn’t get to be “sorry” for anything other waking her up and the desperation in his voice is too stark for this to be something small.

“I’m outside. I need you to let me in, Claire. I…” He groans deeply and she leaps for her bedroom door, not even noticing the wave of hot air that rushes past in her wake. “Please, Claire, let me in. I need you.”

She’d moved, after all that…stuff. Found a place above a twenty-four hour coffee house in a building that’d been around since the twenties. Had found herself oddly charmed by the windows that still had the original locks on them. She keeps the key hanging on the doorway to the kitchen, and she snatches it as she heads for the living room and the fire escape. Matt’s probably still talking to her, but she drops her phone on the couch and quickly works the lock so she can throw the window open to –

– a not obviously wounded Matt Murdock. Literally, Matt Murdock. He’s not in his body armor but in sweats and a t-shirt with the sleeves torn off, and curled into a tight ball on her fire escape. He’s a little roughed up, like someone introduced his cheek to a brick wall, but not –

He lets out a quiet sob, and she clambers through the window to crouch next to him.

“Matt, relax, okay? I’m right here. Can you show me where you’re hurt?” He doesn’t respond except to curl tighter around himself in an obvious (and clearly futile) attempt at self-comfort. She tries to soothe him, brushing his hair out of his face so she can at least see that bruise on his cheek better, but at the first skim of her fingers against his skin he gasps and presses into her hand.

“Shit. Matt, you’re burning up. Why didn’t you stay home if you’re sick? I would have come to you.” She hauls him upright, to the complaint of the muscles in her thighs and shoulders, but she knows how to lift uncooperative bodies. He tries to resist, once again mumbling about being sorry, but he never fully uncurls so guiding his upper body through the window is easy. And once he’s half in her apartment it’s easy enough to drag the rest in.

“Com’on, we need to get you to the bedroom. It’s the only room the air conditioner will make a dent in – Matt, what are you doing?” He pulls away, slamming into the wall next to the window, arms still wrapped tight around his ribcage and body starting to shake.

“No. No, no, no.” She doesn’t think he’s talking to her, and it’s really starting to freak her out. Shit. She needs to get his temperature taken, on top of multiple other things.

“Matt. _Matt._ ” Claire snaps her fingers in front of his face several times before he gives her his attention. And the sudden, intense focus is…unsettling. Especially with the lenses of his glasses reflecting light from the small lamp she leaves on at night now. But she needs to evaluate his state of mind, and that means asking questions and getting some answers.

“Matt, do you know where you are?”

“Claire. I…” He wets his lips several times as he staggers where he’s braced on her wall. Like he’s drunk, not sick. “I didn’t know where else to go. I lost them, but they knew to find me at the gym –”

“They who?” Her heart sinks. This isn’t the flu. This is his night job after all.

He shakes his head minutely, then doubles over as if fighting off cramps. “No!” he gasps as she steps forward. “Don’t, I can’t…”

Maybe she shouldn’t have ignored him. Maybe she should have gotten a few more details first. But she’s seen his tough guy act too many times, and her own instinct to soothe pain too strong, so she does ignore his protests. The moment she guides his head down to her shoulder, the moment she offers to support some of his weight so that he’s leaning into her instead of the wall… Well, things get incredibly more awkward as he’s suddenly pressing her into the wall and shaking apart in her arms.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. The groan he muffles against her shoulder is unmistakable. After nearly a year of mutual attraction and mutual self-denial, she’s seeing Matthew Murdock driven to the point of orgasm and it has little – if anything – to do with her.

Shit.

 

+

 

Claire leaves him in her tiny bathroom to clean up and… Hell, to give both of them time to decide how to react to what just happened. And she suspects, as she digs out the emergency stash of clothes she’s kept on hand for him, that they’re both going to try to pretend that hadn’t happened.

The bathroom door opens. She takes a deep breath and ignores that Matt’s standing there in just a towel and his glasses. She tries not to be insulted, but the presence of the lenses perched on his nose is an obvious attempt at distance. Instead she focuses on the patchy red flush spread over his exposed skin, on the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the pulse she can see racing in his neck. Whatever else is going on here, he’s also exhibiting some of the same symptoms as heat stroke, and that at least gives her something to treat.

“We need to get your temperature down,” she says quietly as she sets his stack of spare clothes next to her medical bag. There’s a beat-up footlocker at the end of her bed that she kicks gently to help him locate. It’s probably best that she not touch him until she has some gloves on. He doesn’t move, and she pointedly kicks the trunk harder before digging through her bag for a pair of latex gloves.

Matt is still standing in the open bathroom door when she’s done.

Okay. “I get it. This is…awkward, to say the least. But whatever is going on here is something we can handle. So sit your ass down and let me do what I do. Please, Matt.”

She thinks it might be the please that does it.

He shuffles into the room and takes a seat on the locker. Claire doesn’t even waste time taking his temperature, just breaks open a cold pack and directs him to hold it to the back of his neck while she takes a look at the graze on his cheek. “So what exactly happened? You said someone found you at your gym? Does that mean someone knows about –”

She’s close enough as she smoothes antibacterial cream over the graze that she can hear him swallow as he stiffly shakes his head. “No,” he whispers. “Claire? Water?”

“Yeah. Okay.” She leaves long enough to grab a plastic tumbler and the jug of water she keeps in her fridge in this kind of weather. It’s long enough that Matt’s wearing pants when she comes back into the bedroom and closes the door to keep the cool air from escaping. He empties one glass and half of a second before setting it aside. He allows her to guide his hand (with the ice pack in it) back to his neck, but his other hand fists around the loose material of the track pants. (He rubs the fabric between his fingers and frowns.) (She tells herself she does not notice that he doesn’t reach for her.) (Silly to even think that he would.)

“So what happened?” Other than the fever and the light bruising she can see, there doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with him.

“’S a case,” he mumbles. “Woman, finishing her doctorate and working at a hotel on 41st. Went to a bar after work one night and…” He shakes his head and Claire’s able to piece together what he’s not saying. “She remembered feeling…not intoxicated, exactly, but something like that. Suggestible. And, um, aroused. So she did the whole thing – reported it, went to the hospital… Then a few weeks later a video popped up. She came to us to get it taken down. At least. But…” He shakes his head again, struggling to find words. “There wasn’t anything left of whatever drug they used by the time she got to the hospital, and nothing on the video screams non-consensual. So it’s been an uphill battle. I’ve been looking into it during my off hours, trying to track down a…a…dealer…or…” He trails off, muscles jumping into stark relief as he fights his own body, she realizes. “Guess I made more progress being a lawyer this time. Got jumped leaving the gym. Couldn’t…couldn’t…had to be blind…”

“You’re _dosed?_ ” she demands, her body backing away in horror. “Matt, we need to get you to a _hospital_ –”

Of course he denies it. _Of course._ He shakes his head violently. “No. I…I…you should do it. But I can’t –”

“Do _what_ exactly?” Because it sounds like she should be doing a whole hell of a lot of _nothing._

“You need to take a blood sample. And…there’s a needle…it broke off.”

“Damnit, Matt. Are you really telling me – ?” Of course he is. He’s drugged to the gills, apparently in no fit state to consent to anything, and trying to get her to extract evidence from him while he fights off a woody. “You need to be in a hospital,” she repeats, but already starting to accept that her advice will fall on deaf ears.

“And what happens when the sample degrades before we can get it to a lab?” she tries to reason. He’s a lawyer. He’s supposed to like reason. “Which is totally something we could avoid by just taking _you_ to a hospital and getting treatment in the bargain –”

He has the gall to laugh at her, though it sounds bleak enough that she doesn’t actually murder him. “And then what?” he gasps. “What kind of ‘treatment’ do you think there is for this? Unless hospitals are more like pornography than people imagine –”

“Sedatives, Matt. Equipment that will let us know if your system is unduly stressed –”

“You take me to a hospital and I guarantee my system will be stressed.” He takes off his glasses so he can swipe his hands over his eyes. “You’ll have to take the sample in –”

“You want me to leave you here. By yourself. While you what? Try to meditate your way out of this?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“That is a terrible plan. If it even qualifies as a plan.” How is this her life? Because if she takes him to Metro General, she’ll be able to stay with him but will probably need to explain the mass of scars that masquerades as his torso. If she takes him somewhere else, she won’t need to explain a damn thing, but she won’t get to stay with him either. And yes, she could probably swing what he’s asking for as long as she doesn’t mind the consequences, _but how is this her life?_

“Claire. Please.”

She shoots him a dirty look and stomps over to her med bag, because of course she’s been waiting for the day she’d have to do something like this. “I hate you,” she whispers under her breath as she digs for the vacuum test tubes stashed in her bag. She knows he hears her because she can hear his breath catch. And when she has to cut into him to retrieve the needle that broke off in his arm, she damns him for that too.

 

+

 

It’s almost two in the morning by the time Claire arrives home. She’s running off two hours of sleep in the last twenty-four, and is literally dragging. Her shoes shuffle on the carpet as she comes to a slow stop. Her closed apartment door is like a line in the sand, one she’s not sure she wants to cross. Matt had better fucking be (such bad choice of words) in her apartment and not trying to stoic his way through this on his own. But it’s a hurting, untouchable – _untrustable_ – version of Matt. It’s not that she has to guard herself against him, but that she has to guard him from herself. From all her instincts to help, to quiet, to aid.

She almost decides to sleep in the hall.

 _Get a grip_ , she lectures herself. _Make yourself some coffee and let him get on with meditating or masturbating, and stay out of it._ If he needs actual medical assistance, she’ll be on hand. That will have to be enough.

The door closes almost silently behind her, and she waits on the threshold, listening. Nothing. “Still here?” she asks at a normal, conversational level. Doesn’t get a response, but doesn’t know what she really expected.

The percolator sounds unusually loud as she reaches underneath a cabinet for a bottle of sports drink. If Matt is still here, then he needs to replenish, no matter what it is he’s doing. She knocks on the bedroom door, waits. Knocks again. “Matt? I have something for you to drink.” Nothing. _Well crap._ She cracks the door open and peers inside after taking 10 seconds to listen. She still hears nothing, and when she looks around, she finds Matt motionless and once again curled up around himself. Not on the bed, of course. No, that would be sensible. Instead he’s in a corner, head tucked between his knees and hands clasped behind his neck. It hurts to see and be able to do nothing, so she sets the bottle down just inside the room and closes the door again.

It’s so hot. Claire strips down to her tank top and panties, kicking her clothes into the bathroom before detouring and giving herself a quick wash with the hand towel from the bathroom sink. The water evaporates quickly and does nothing to wake her up. And her traitor coffee pot is only half through it’s brew.

Claire sits down – collapses – on her couch and sighs. Then snaps off the light and lies down. Just for a moment.


	2. Chapter 2

“Claire.” 

_No. No, no, no, no._

“Claire, please… Help.”

Waking up is not any easier the second time around. She’s not where she expects to be, and the disorientation is enough to make her heart thud erratically. The looming shadow at the foot of her couch certainly doesn’t help. Her body reacts instinctively; she lunges for the lamp and rolls off the couch to get her feet underneath her before her waking brain catches up with her subconscious.

“Jesus Christ, Matt.” She falls back onto the couch and tries to catch her breath. Looks up when she hears him run into the coffee table. He…he looks like shit, actually. He’s covered in sweat, muscles quivering, hair sticking to his temples, his forehead.

“Claire?”

He sounds just as wrecked as he looks. And vulnerable. _He doesn’t just sound vulnerable, he **is** vulnerable. _ She beats that thought into her brain as she clears her throat. “I’m here. What’s wrong?”

“I can’t… And there’s not… Help?” He reaches for her, and she hasn’t seen him grope for a single thing since that first night on her couch when he was suffering from blood loss and a concussion. Probable concussion. It’s unnerving enough that she reaches out and grabs his hand just to still the restless motion.

She should know better. They’ve done this once already. But the moment her skin touches his, he is on her, face pressed into her belly and legs pulled up tight as his hips thrust into open air. His gasping breaths are humid against the cotton of her tank and the bones of her hand ache at the strength of his grip.

God, she doesn’t know what to do. And that might be the scariest part of all of this. But holding him is probably not…it’s not the worst thing she could do right now. She uses her free hand to cup the back of his head and starts offering empty reassurances – “I’m here, I’m here, Matt, I’ve got you…” – and it… Helps is probably the wrong word, but it certainly speeds things along. His desperation changes, becomes focused? Maybe? But after two or three more agonizing minutes the thrust of his hips becomes jerky and arrhythmic before slowing to a stop.

They’re both trembling at the end, neither of them willing to move. (Claire will not set off a new round of…whatever this is, and she suspects that Matt just can’t face it yet.)

Finally she risks moving her hand out of his so that she can get a rough measure of his pulse. Elevated still, of course, but she thinks it’s slowing down some. What’s concerning is the way he’s still radiating heat like an oven.

“Have you had anything to drink since I left?” His head eventually shakes against her stomach. _Okay._ “We need to fix that.”

It takes long moments to untangle herself from him. Matt seems incapable of moving on his own, and she doesn’t want to jar him. But slowly she slides out from under him and moves to the back of the apartment. She returns with a small laundry basket loaded with clean towels, the half-filled jug of now warm water, and the bottle of sports drink.

He’s still facing the back of the couch when she comes in. She sighs, then carefully sits down with her back pressed to his. Using the water she wets one of the towels and passes it to him. Waits. Pretends she doesn’t hear his soft sounds of… Well, he doesn’t sound happy. Is slightly startled as Matt slides out from behind her to sit up; he puts the used towel in the basket, then slumps back. She cracks open the bottle of sports drink and his hand finds it easily when she holds it out.

Well, there’s obviously moments of semi-clarity between bouts, she thinks as he sips at the drink without making a single disgusted face. He probably won’t even complain about the taste of the food coloring – not that she needs to hear it again. But he’s been here for… She has to check her phone for the time. Five in the morning. Great. But that means this stuff has been in his system for roughly…six hours? And it’s not showing any sign of getting better. They need to talk about some things.

“How are you feeling?” she asks when he hands the bottle back. (He drank maybe a fourth of it, and she’d really like to get that to half.)

“Mortified?” His voice is rough, and she has to wonder what he’s done with it because he has been so quiet around her. “Humiliated? Sorry that I’ve dragged you into something you never wanted?”

“To be fair, I don’t think either of us ever wanted… _this_.” His expression becomes sad instead of completely closed off. “Now, how are you feeling? Are you in any pain?”

He laughs humorlessly. “Yes? No? I don’t… It’s like being covered in bugs, or having electricity crawling under your skin. And I can’t…I can’t _focus_. There’s no release, just multiplying sensation until I can’t…I can’t…”

For all that’s happened tonight, the is the first time he’s actually started to become agitated. “Okay.” God, she wants to reach out and hold him, but that’s probably not going to fly right now. “It’s okay. We’ll deal with this.” He turns his face away and he’s breaking her heart here. “I’m serious. I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

“Because that’s our deal.”

She hates it when he does that, reduces them to a set of rules. (Part of her hates it; the other part thinks it’s like a toddler double checking to see if maybe the rules have miraculously changed.) He’s damn well aware of why those rules exist. She can’t be the only one still feeling the weight of everything they could be. Because of that, she chooses her words carefully.

“When those Russian bastards kidnapped me, you came after them. You took care of me. There might not be anyone here I can fight –” except him, of course, “– but like hell am I not fighting for you any way I can.” She is tired, and perhaps it’s more than she strictly meant to say, but it’s the truth. She will fight anyone – including Matt Murdock – to keep this man safe.

“That’s why I came here, you know?” His quiet confession surprises her (because they’re much better at leaving things left unsaid than anything else). “It’s more than not knowing anywhere else that was safe. I didn’t know any _one_ that would be safer.”

It’s a mistake. This is such a mistake. She is going to regret this so much later. But Claire still reaches out and cups his face, thumb caressing his undamaged cheekbone. The way he turns into her touch is as certain as the moon pulling the tides. (And completely heartbreaking in a “this _could_ have been my life” sort of way.) But it’s not so simple as just physical touch; his lips brush against the inside of her wrist and she has to pull away before he can do more than that. (The flush on his chest is deepening again and she is here to ease him not exacerbate his condition.)

“We need to talk,” she tells him, taking a seat on her table and handing him the sports drink to satisfy his wandering hands. “We need to…make some decisions. It seems as if you’re having an easier time focusing?”

Matt shrugs, as if to say that clarity of thought is a subjective thing right now.

“Okay. If we… Are you familiar with the universal pain scale?” He’s melting into the couch and she really needs them to have this discussion now and not on the low side of another bout. “Matt? Are you with me?” He nods, then clears his throat.

“Yeah. One to ten. No pain to worst pain.”

“Good. So if we made a scale of one to ten with one being that feeling of waking up stiff and bruised after a…a night on the town, and ten being…well, slowly suffocating because your lung is collapsing, how do you feel right now?”

“Three,” he answers after several long moments. “Maybe four.”

“Okay. And twenty minutes ago you’d rate your place on the scale as…?”

“Seven. Maybe eight.”

Claire nods to herself (maybe eight means definitely eight) and organizes her thoughts. “Would I be correct in assuming that you’ve only…” She is a nurse, she can do this. “That you’ve only reached orgasm twice since being injected with whatever this stuff is?”

This time he only nods, and he’s hiding his face from her again.

“Have you tried masturbating to relieve the…buzz? Or are you going to tell me the good Catholic boy shtick extends to even this situation?”

When Matt laughs weakly, she allows herself to feel just a little relief.

“It doesn’t help. I can’t… All I can focus on is the buzz under my skin. Touching myself like that…it makes things worse. I don’t… You know my senses don’t work quite right.”

Fair enough. And she hadn’t quite taken that into consideration. “And when… When I touch you, it what? Grounds you? Tips the sensory overload into something that’s overwhelming instead of…?”

“The first one.” At the first mention of her limited participation so far, Matt’s head comes back up. His eyes meet hers as much as they ever do, and she can’t help but notice in the strengthening light that his pupils are dilated. Clearly the hormonal response is still functional even if the muscles that react to light aren’t. _Shit_. “Claire –”

She stands and puts the table between them. “You said your client, the woman who brought this case to you in the first place, that she was incapable of consenting to anything that happened to her while under the influence of this drug. I can’t disagree with that. But I don’t know what to do here, Matt. I’m a nurse, not a…a…ethicist.”

“Claire. Does it matter? I trust you.”

“Just…flat out. No questions asked. If I do something to you, it’s clearly for your own good.”

“Yeah.”

She stands there, slackjawed. It’s not that she doesn’t believe him – if their situations were reversed (and a hospital with good sedatives were unavailable) then she would…she’d say the same thing about him. Because Matt would never hurt her. Not physically. And she really can’t face the risk of hurting him any other way.

“You know that. I told you that. You were the safest place I could think of.”

She laughs…well, laugh is the best word for it. “You mean I’m the only one who wouldn’t hospitalize you against your will.”

Matt carefully sets his drink on the table and then stands up. He’s wobbly and uncoordinated, and she keeps the table between them without fear that he’s going to be able to leap over it or something.

“Claire –”

“I’m not saying I’m going to leave you to do this alone. I’m trying to convince both of us that _being here_ is all I can reasonably offer.”

“My feelings haven’t changed, Claire.” That’s playing dirty, and even he must realize it because he does not seize the advantage when her feet end up frozen to the floor. “I know you had reasons –”

“Good reasons.”

“Good reasons,” he agrees, “for making another choice. But if you came to me tomorrow and said you wanted to…to make a go of it…”

“You realize you’re literally spelling out why I think you’re incapable of giving informed consent right now, don’t you?” His hands are rubbing fitfully at the fabric of his pants. She’s losing him to his climbing hormones. It’s actually making her hate herself a little bit, because she knows he’s going to be hurting and what she’s prepared to offer is little more than a bandaid and a lollypop.

“I can hold you.” If he has to hear her draw the line again, then she’ll do it. “When it gets unbearable. I can ground you if that’s what you need. But please don’t ask me to do more than that. I don’t know what I’d do if…if you never came back because of what’s happening here.”

Maybe he can smell the tears she’s blinking back. Hell, maybe he can taste them on the back of his tongue as he starts breathing through his mouth. Or maybe he can just hear how far she’s been pushed because he closes off. And that’s not what she wants, but then neither is any of the rest of this, and sometimes helping someone means hurting them a little, and god. She’s such a coward.

“I keep waking you up,” he murmurs as he carefully navigates back to the couch. “You should go get some sleep.”

She should. Because who knows how much longer this is going to last? Who knows if this is an overdose, or a bad trip courtesy of his enhanced nervous system, or what? And she does make herself walk out of the room, go into the bedroom, and close (but not latch) the door behind her.

But it feels a hell of a lot like running away.


	3. Chapter 3

“Claire.”

He’d only held out an hour this time.

“Claire?”

 Probably because he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head.

“Claire?”

He can barely hear himself over the buzzing in his ears. Maybe she can’t hear him either.

_Safe. Claire._

He’d tried meditating, if only to hold off another attack as long as possible. Claire won’t help him. Wrong. Claire _will_ help him. Claire _won’t_ touch him. And he aches. His chest, his lungs, his abdomen, his groin… And he feels so dirty, layer upon layer of dried sweat weighing down his skin. But if Claire would only touch him, he would…he would…

Claire doesn’t want this.

He tries harder to meditate.

 

+

 

Claire doesn’t have pictures hanging on her wall. At least not in the hallway. He knows because he’s leaning on the wall so heavily that he would have knocked anything hanging from it to the floor.

Maybe…maybe he doesn’t need to wake her up?

Or is that creepy?

He’s lost track of all the ways he’s taken advantage of her. Maybe he should wake her up so it isn’t creepy. Just to be sure.

He hates that he is reduced to this thing seeking approval from someone who wants nothing to do with him. But his brain catches on the word approval, and all he can focus on is gaining Claire’s.

Claire.

His Claire.

The door is open, and he creeps in, edging towards where he remembers the bed to be. (Can’t “see” it. Can’t sense the heat of Claire’s body past the pyre of his own. Can’t hear past his own ragged breaths. And the scent of her is all around him.)

He drops when he finally runs into the bed, unaware of the noise (or pain) of his knees hitting thin carpet over hardwood. The mattress stifles his low moan of distress (the buzz is no longer that of insects, but that of a centrifuge about to fly to bits) and he tucks his hands around his ankles. (Touching will not help; touching next to Claire when she doesn’t want his touching is creepy.) And he kneels there, trying to let the pain become it’s own sort of meditation. A prayer offered at the side of her bed. ( _See how good I can be. I am not creepy. I will not take._ )

_Have…have mercy on us sinners…now and…and…_

“Oh, Matt…”

So hard to hear her over the demands of his body, but she sounds sad, and he responds in kind. Her comforter soaks up his tears better than it’d absorbed his pathetic whimpers. Claire shouldn’t be sad, and he makes Claire sad, but she won’t go, so maybe she likes being sad –

“Shh… I’m here. I’m right here.” Her hand finds his shoulder, slides up along his neck, combs through the short hairs at his nape. It’s like throwing a Molotov cocktail into an already burning building. He bites down on the fabric covering his face as his prick jerks against his stomach, leaking and leaving him feeling dirtier than ever.

And it’s not enough. Not like it had been before. _Please, Claire. Mercy. I’m so sorry. Please._ “Please… I need…need…” He leans back (Offering? Showing? Begging?) and waits. Claire says she doesn’t know what to do, but she does. She does. She always makes the pain better. “Claire?”

She…moves?…and offers mercy. “Come here, Matt. Come here. Shh…” Hands on his face. Claire likes touching his face. _He_ likes Claire touching his face. He likes that Claire likes touching his face.

Not enough.

He can’t hear much, but he hears her quiet gasp before he moans in blessed relief and sucks around the thumb he’s caught in his mouth. _Yes. Yeessss…_ And she allows it. Doesn’t pull away. Rests her forehead against his as her legs open wide and cradle his shaking body.

Claire.

_Claire._

He comes with the taste of her on his tongue and her lips pressed hard to his temple.

 

+

 

Every time he comes back down he feels a little less…just less. Not in a good way, but as if parts of him get lost every time he flies apart.

His chest rests against the side of the mattress, his arms over Claire’s knees and his head pillowed on her thigh. She’s… He thinks she’s taking his pulse at the neck while her other hand strokes slowly up and down what she can reach of his back. He doesn’t know if she intends to give him something to breathe to, but he falls into the pattern of it willingly. Anything he doesn’t have to think about right now is a good thing.

The sweat covering him has turned tacky and uncomfortable before she speaks.

“With me again?”

At least she acknowledges that there’s a difference between this and the mindless –

He bites the inside of his lip hard enough to make it bleed just to give himself something else to think about.

“Matt?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

He hates the way she insists on fighting like an adult, all measured breaths and reason. This would be easier if she’d fling a few insults his way. (Earlier does not count. She can say she hates him all she wants, but he can hear the lie in it.)

“I wish you’d just erase that word from your vocabulary,” she mutters.

And yeah, from her point of view it must not mean a damn thing anymore.

“My dad raised me to be polite.” His pants are clammy with drying ejaculate, and he doesn’t know how to adjust them without reminding her of what –

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it? You needed more…indirect stimulation that time.”

He almost adores her for not shying away from the biological facts of what’s going on here. Would adore her if he could stop feeling humiliated for more than two seconds. (They aren’t consecutive seconds.)

“Yeah,” he agrees hoarsely, trying very hard not to think about what that might mean and failing.

“Okay.” She takes another deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Okay. Here’s what happens next: I’m going to take your blood pressure because I’m concerned about what this…strain…might be doing to you. And then you’re going to take a shower, eat something small, and try to get in a nap. Even twenty minutes would be better than nothing.”

He’s too tired to argue with her, even if he were ungrateful enough to do it. He thinks that bothers her, but this has turned into a matter of endurance. There’s nothing else to do but get through it.

 

+

 

Claire has lost count of the number of times she’s seen Matt half-dead and still fighting to keep…fighting. (That’s a lie. She remembers each and every time. Vividly.) So this shambling form that needs her support for the short walk from her bed to the bathroom is…

She’s scared.

Scared and rethinking her decision about what she can offer. Because if decreased sensitivity and increased overstimulation is really the emerging pattern here… It’s not that compassion makes a compelling argument. It’s more like compassion dragged guilt into the picture and the two are pummeling her insides. He shouldn’t be forced to endure such a mindless state of misery before she consents to help him.

Do no harm seems like such a simple mandate, but what about when she has to judge which is the lesser harm?

Her shower stall is small enough that Matt won’t be able to fall over in it, much less fall over and drown so she leaves him to shower while she takes both his pairs of pants for a rough wash in the kitchen sink. The day promises to be overwhelmingly humid, but certainly hot enough that his things will dry quickly on the fire escape.

She wears her dish gloves to do it. (She is not squeamish, but the context of this is all wrong, and she will not pretend that anything about it is right.) (She has pretended about the right context, and that’s what makes this so much harder.)

If she can tell Matt the best way to torture information out of a man, then why is offering to help him find what slight relief he can from this nightmare such a hard choice?

The water turning off interrupts her introspection. Still unsure of _what_ to do but convinced that something has to be done, she gathers what she wants from the kitchen and walks back down the hall. She sets the small meal on her bedside table and goes into the bathroom where Matt is still standing in the shower stall, motionless and dripping.

“Hey, check in with me,” she says calmly as she pulls a towel – the one she used just yesterday – from the rack and opens the door. Her hand reaches for his arm, intending to guide him out of the shower, but he twitches away from her. _Oh._ “Matt? It’s just me.”

His jaw clenches and his throat contracts as he swallows. He does not actually respond.

“Matt, where are you on that pain scale right now?”

“Does it matter?” Well, that’s an answer. It’s an alarming answer, but he’s speaking. “You should just leave me here so I can hose off every time I… Don’t touch me, Claire.”

She pulls her hand back and stares at him out of narrowed eyes as she works through his words. “I’m sorry. Are you under the impression that you are somehow too dirty for me to touch?” Stony expression, hard set to the shoulders. “Aren’t we dealing with enough shit as it is? For Christ’s sake – you’re a bundle of nerves inside a meat suit. And I’m hardly some blushing virgin whose sensibilities you need to keep from offending. If I’m offended by anything, it’s that you think any of this somehow reflects on you instead of the bastards using it to control people. Now are you coming out, or am I coming in?”

Apparently she’s shocked his ability to talk out of him again, but he does shuffle towards her.

“Don’t stub your toes,” she mutters as he finds the rim of the stall. “Answer the original question, please. Pain scale?” She closes the stall door so he can lean back against it as she starts gently rubbing the towel over his hair. For all that she is pissed off, none of it has to do with him. And so she is careful to be kind but professional. Just a body, she’d said. He’s going to have to buy that if she’s going to help him more than she has been.

“Remember…” he says haltingly. “The night we met. When I came back after getting that boy away from the Russians.”

Oh yes, she remembers that. She carefully starts blotting his neck and shoulders dry as she remembers. He’d spent 14 hours passed out on her friend’s couch and then disappeared on her the moment it got dark again.

“That felt better than this does right now.”

_Oh, Matt…_

“Claire?” His fingers find her shoulders. It’s so shocking – so normal – that she looks up into his face automatically, giving him her full attention. His eyes are closed, but wet. “I’m so tired, Claire. I can’t keep… I can’t do that again.”

“Okay,” she whispers back, her hand simply steadying him for a moment, proving that she is right here with him. Her response confuses him – she can see that – but she agrees. They can’t do that (that with him crying and desperate) again. It’s cruel. “We need to talk. But I want you to try to eat something first.”


	4. Chapter 4

He tells her he’s not hungry. She calls B.S. and forcibly puts the homemade protein bar in his hand. Well, half of one. They’ll see how he handles that before attempting more. Claire even almost smiles at the way Matt appears to smell it suspiciously.

“Do you need the recipe before you’ll try it? It’s one of my favorites, so I can probably recite most of it.”

“You made this?” That seems to reassure him. Or he takes a small bite, at least.

“Mmm… I’m a nurse. I need quick, portable food that’s not terrible for your body. I make a couple of batches every few months and keep them frozen.” Matt’s propped up against her pillows at the head of the bed while she reclines across the foot. He’s not getting twitchy yet, but she’s watching for it, and listening for any speech issues that can’t be chalked up to embarrassment.

He eats the rest of the portion in a gratifyingly short amount of time, and obediently drinks from the glass she’d left by the bed.

“Whole milk?”

“Does a body good,” she responds through a yawn…then has to head him off when acts like he’s going to get up. “No, no, no, no, no, no. I’m fine, and you’re cogent, and we’re discussing a new plan of attack because clearly the old one sucks.”

To his credit, Matt does stop. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her, but he doesn’t flee. Doesn’t plead her own good as a reason to avoid this. His body language isn’t promising though. He’s incredibly tense, and –

“When was the last time you were a blushing virgin?”

Claire blinks at his back in silence for a few moments as she tries to puzzle out… “Okay. Sure.” She shifts on the bed so that she’s cross-legged and supporting herself on her arms. _Her_ body language is open, should that be something he’s gauging. “But what you don’t realize is I’m perfectly willing to bargain, if that’s what it’s going to take to have this discussion. The answer is never. My sensibility has always been that a body is a body. And I was certainly never willing to let anyone make me feel bad about mine. So. No need to blush.”

From where she sits she can see his profile. He looks like he didn’t really expect her to answer, and she almost feels sorry for him. Almost. They have _so much bigger_ issues to deal with. “I need to get involved in…these attacks…sooner. Delaying the inevitable is clearly not a workable solution.”

“No.”

He says it like “that’s final.” Like she can’t completely subvert his body to her own ends should she want to. (She _doesn’t_ want to, that’s what this talk is supposed to be about.)

“Are you going to give me more than that, or are we going to try this again later? After you’re done begging for my touch?” It’s blunt. And possibly mean. Definitely pushing at him to engage with her. “This is the situation we’re in, Matt. Aren’t you tired of letting your hijacked biology set the terms?”

There’s an instant where Claire thinks he’s going to sweep her lamp off the bedside table (or upend the table entirely), or throw her dishes across the room. Her breath hitches in horrified anticipation – and he freezes. As if he heard her. His half-extended arm starts to tremble before he slowly lowers it back to his side.

“Yeah, because a pity fuck is really going to make this all better.”

And that, she thinks as she waits for him to settle, that is the vein of self-loathing she’s always known ran through him. From that very first night when she’d realized he didn’t prioritize his own health and safety over anything, and probably would always struggle to. If he ever did at all.

She edges off the bed, carefully watching Matt the whole time. He’s chosen iron control over violence, so she’s not worried about that. (While he might hurt her things he’d never raise a hand to her.) But bolting is possible. Maybe even to the point of trying to leave her apartment. What she says now has to be said very, very carefully.

So. Time to ditch all her warm up arguments and strike directly at the heart of the matter.

“Matt? I’m going to touch your face. Is that alright?” The shrug she gets in response is not particularly encouraging, but it’s not a no. So she eases in, coming to stand directly in front of him, between his spread legs. He doesn’t give even the illusion of looking at her as she carefully raises his face; his eyes are trained off to the side, directly at the wall. He’s breathing deep and slow, a lie told to comfort her, but a lie nonetheless. (His hands are white knuckled around the edge of the mattress and the pulse at his throat is racing.)

“I think…” she says slowly, considering the exact words she should use. “I think this would be easier for you if our places were switched. If I’d been the one who was drugged instead of you.” And oh, ( _oh, oh, ohhh..._ ) the pain that crosses his features, stark and swift and terrible. It breaks him; he wraps his arms around her, and buries his face between her breasts, shaking his head back and forth as he mutters denials. But all of them having to do with how he’d never wish for her to the be one in his place.

“I didn’t say that’s what you wanted,” she corrects softly. “I’m saying you’d find it easier. That…that you wouldn’t hesitate to give your body in exchange for whatever small relief I might find from it. That you’d do whatever I needed you to, and all the while be expecting me to wake up hating you for it when it was all over. I think you wouldn’t even think twice before sacrificing everything for me. Yeah?”

He eventually nods, maybe not brave enough to say the words, possibly too scared to even consider the scenario. But yeah, she’s right. Of course she is.

“Yeah. So I want you to listen very, very carefully right now: I care about you too much to watch you suffer any more. I would rather trade places with you right now than endure that last round again, because you’d be far kinder to me than you’d ever be to yourself. So let me help you.”

They are running out of time. He’s half-hard against her leg and his fingers are stroking the worn cotton of her t-shirt.

“Matt?”

He swallows hard and pulls her closer. “You said you didn’t want this.”

He’s said that over and over; if that’s the core of his objection she thinks she can finally lay it to rest. “I don’t want you out of control and forced into intimacy. But of course I want _you_. Even when I shouldn’t, I’ve always wanted you.”

He looks…torn. Like her answer is a matter of life or death and he doesn’t know if he can trust her.

“You’re saying that so I’ll let you help me.”

It’s probably inappropriate (but who’s keeping track of _that_ right now?) all things considered, but Claire can’t help but laugh. She stifles it quickly, but it does escape her. “I thought we’d covered the fact that eventually I’ll be able to do anything to you that I want. But all I want is to know if you trust me to care enough about you to take care of you. And you can only answer that question now. Not in five minutes. Now.”

“How much do you care about me, Claire?”

 _Too much. More than I hoped I would by now._ “My feelings for you have not changed,” she whispers, barely able to hold back the pain that accompanies them. “Do you trust me?”

He starts…vibrating…under her palms.

“Yes. Claire, yes. I –” His arms tighten around her until she starts to feel a little crushed and is forced to straddle him on the bed to keep her balance.

“Shh…shh, Matt.” She strokes his hair back from his face as best she can with it buried in her neck. Tries to maintain her cool. Reminds herself that for everything that’s happening, she is still his primary caregiver and the line between providing that care and taking advantage is still perilously thin. It’s her decisions that are going to be what they have to live with from this point out, so she’d better be damn sure of the limits she’s setting.

(This has to be about him. Those are the limits she’s setting.)

To that effect, she slides her weight onto the bed the moment his arms loosen enough to allow it. He follows, his head not leaving her shoulder and his fists stay clamped in her shirt until she stops moving. Propped up on her pillows, she holds him close with one arm around his back (does simple physical contact help alleviate his symptoms?) and his body pressed up tight along the line of hers. She strokes and strokes and strokes until his trembling stops and some of his tension melts away.

“Check in with me,” she murmurs.

His response is a low murmur and an absent-minded thrust of his hips.

“Matt?”

His entire body surges against hers, not with any particular intent but as if his answer is a full-body shrug. “Tired,” he finally responds. “Four.”

Okay. Four has been his baseline through this, more or less. Things might have spiked there for a moment, but he’s calming down some. “Sleep while you can,” she urges, holding him just a little closer as if it’ll help. And perhaps it does. He certainly seems to fall asleep. His breathing slows and evens out, so there’s something. Uncertain of how deeply he might sleep (not very, she’s afraid, considering his usual level of hypervigilance), she settles in for a bit of a wait.

Out in the living room her phone starts to ring. But with the bedroom door closed and her attention focused on the man in her arms, Claire doesn’t notice.

 

+

 

It’s the ringing of Claire’s phone that eventually pulls Matt out of his doze. Mechanically shrill and like fingernails on a chalk board to his overworked nervous system, it brings him to consciousness already angry and agitated. He needs to (move) (break) (escape) (fuck) peel his skin off and scratch until his nerves are no longer lighting up with the harsh buzz of a lightning storm. He needs –

Claire’s voice hits him like a sledgehammer, right between the eyes. It refocuses his entire being from the sounds outside the room to the sounds inside his arms. He can’t… She doesn’t make sense; he can’t quite order her words in the right way to process them, but her tone is so intimately soothing that he presses closer, seals his lips over her throat to feel them that much sooner, before the sound waves even hit the air. Then there’s the taste of her on his tongue; salt and iron and copper, and the unique combination of factors that makes up her personal scent. It must have been hours since her last shower he registers distantly, because she tastes the way she smells, not of soap or lotions or powders. It settles him, banks the fire, stills the desperation that has accompanied finding himself alone.

Gentle but firm hands pull him away from his explorations (he whimpers but obeys because _Claire_ ) and the distance helps sort her words out so that he can understand them.

“The scale, Matt. Where are you on the scale right now?”

He could (lie) (pretend) (evade) (underestimate) save face. Give a lower number. But can’t remember why he shouldn’t tell her the truth (pride). Can’t focus on anything other than the relief she has promised. (That is clear if nothing else is.)

“Six? I can’t… You’re so warm, Claire. I want…” (to touch her everywhere, at once.) “It hurts.” Not his body; the rough weight around his hips, rubbing against his sensitive prick. He shoves at it, but it is pressed between their bodies and he can’t bring himself to roll away because what if she _leaves_ (it occurs to him that she has not always been here when he’s thought she was but this time feels real) and that would be bad –

“Let me. Let me help.”

“Help. Yes. Claire.”

She forces him to roll simply because he refuses to be separated from her. And then her hands – gentle, patient, competent – free him. They rest on his hips and still their restless movement (he can be still, if that’s what she wants, so still) but do not do more. (Why, why, why, why?) And yet their warmth is grounding, comforting.

“Shhh… I’m right here. Listen to me, Matt. Are you listening?”

Yes. He’s listening. _Yes, Claire._

Her touch moves to his hand, strokes along his fingers. “This hand is mine now. Do you understand me, Matt? This hand belongs to me.”

The fire is not wholly consuming this time. It leaves him enough sense behind the flickers of _wantneedplease_ for…relief. His Claire is so smart. “Yours,” he agrees breathlessly.

She guides him with the heat of her words and the brush of her lips against his ear. Tells him what she wants her hand to do. How to touch, how to be gentle, how to direct the flames. Her own two arms are around him, one supporting his head and one pressing lightly on his chest. (He does not question where he is; he exists between her two arms and is defined by the hand she claimed as her own.)

He is safe.

Safe.

 

+

 

Claire waits as long as she dares. The point of this is not to prolong anything, lest he slip into overstimulation. But she has some sense of his bodily cues at this point, and she waits for them, for him to be breathless, impatient, lost to anything but the need driving his body.

It’s difficult. Her parasympathetic nervous system has zero concept or right and wrong, much less “consent.” (Bodies are bodies, her belief in that is still strong.) So yes, her body responds this time – has time to notice what is going on and react to Matt’s lack of distress. She’d suspected it would happen, was nearly prepared for it (such a lie), but even so, it’s harder to focus than she’d believed would be possible.

(Matt would never object to her using her own two hands to bring him off, would trust her if she said it was better for him, and that’s what she’s keeping at the forefront of her thoughts. Matt trusts her to care for him.) (It seems her hands are destined only to clean his blood and mend his flesh.)

All the more reason to remain on the periphery.

When she judges he’s ready for it, she pulls away slightly, calming him with soft noises and a firm hand over his heart as she retrieves the bottle of lube she’s been keeping warm between her legs. (It’s not an aspirin, but it’s kept her legs closed so far.) (She might trust Matt, but the drugs running through his system are another matter.) (So’s her own will to resist, for that matter.)

“Put my hand at your side, palm up,” she instructs in the same composed voice she’s been using. And he is so very obedient ( _Suggestible, Claire. Call it what it is._ ), laying his hand aside and waiting for her. His breath catches (and his nose wrinkles) as she leans over him and covers his palm in a thick stripe of the water-based lubricant. (If he has an objection to the smell, he keeps it to himself.)

She recaps the bottle and tucks herself back in against his side. There is so little she can offer here, especially in the way of privacy. But through all of this he has hidden his face from her at his most vulnerable, so she will continue to turn away. She presses her forehead to his temple and closes her eyes before resuming her calm instruction.

 

+

 

Matt shudders as he holds himself ( _hotwettightclaire_ ), every muscle frozen as Claire tells him to wait, wait, wait, wait. Feel. Pretend. (“It’s me, Matt. And you feel so good.”) He can pretend, has had to fight over long months not to pretend. Has had to pretend that he doesn’t know what her racing heart sounds like or the soft rasp of heavy breathing; that he doesn’t know how long the scent of her will stay on his sheets. That he hasn’t guessed what her sighs and surprised gasps and irritated huffs might sound like under other circumstances.

He keeps her hand steady, still, even though it makes every inch of his body ache and throb and itch. Then she frees him.

 

+

 

“Show me how to touch you,” she whispers in his ear. And he does – must – because she can feel the motion of his body in the rocking of the bed, can hear his soft grunts of exertion, taste the sweat gathering at his temples. She urges him on softly, knowing he can hear every word, not knowing if he understands any of it or if her voice is simply part of the storm now.

At some point near the end his left hand closes the distance between their bodies, finds her knee and _holds_. Claims the joint for his own territory and does not budge (she will not take advantage but as long as he doesn’t move his hand neither will she).

 

+

 

He comes with her name on his lips.

 

+

 

Claire does not move an inch until she’s certain he’s asleep. (He has not once fallen asleep after one of these episodes. He might just be wearing out. She hopes it’s because his system wasn’t as stressed.)

She has to reach down and remove his hand from her knee.


	5. Chapter 5

Taking her own advice, Claire eats something. Not much. A plum that’s well on it’s way to overripe and a protein bar of her own. It settles her stomach a little, answering the age old question “Am I nauseous or am I hungry?” It also makes her realize that she is…furious. Angry enough that the water in the cup she’s holding shakes along with her hand. If she were any less tired, she might even be enraged. She wants…

She wants her _fucking_ phone to stop ringing.

Stalking into the living room, she snatches her phone off the table and sends the current call straight to voice mail. Then she stands still for a good thirty seconds, trying to decide if she should look at her missed call log or just throw her phone across the room and let that solve the problem. _(You are not throwing your phone across the room. You will regret that later.)_

All right. Fine. Clearly someone really wants to talk to her, and maybe she should deal with that.

Her call log is filled with the same number over and over again, the same missed call every fifteen to twenty minutes for the last two and a half hours. It occurs to Claire that it’s a Thursday, in the world outside her apartment, and that perhaps someone might be missing Matt. It makes her even more reluctant to actually talk to anyone. (God, what would she even _say_?) But while avoiding this problem might make her life easier, it’s potentially making someone else’s life hellish.

She glances down the hall, at the open bedroom door, her thoughts split between the man in her bedroom and the phone in her hand. With a sigh, she takes her phone outside; she leaves the window cracked behind her as she settles onto the fire escape. The metal grating is already uncomfortably warm under her thighs and heat radiates off the brick behind her. Even the heat isn’t enough to spur her into action, though. What is she supposed to say? Really? _“Yeah, Matt’s here with me and he’s not injured, per se, but boy is he miserable?” “Don’t worry, I’m sidestepping any questions of consent by telling him how to masturbate himself?” “I know it sounds dodgy, but I’m SuperNurse ™ and therefore am nothing but a human shaped bundle of pure, unfeeling professionalism?”_

“Shit,” she whispers to herself. This is so bad. If she can’t make herself believe her motivations, how is she supposed to explain any of this to someone else? Not to mention there’s the whole patient privacy thing which means she gets to say, _“He’s here, he’s not bleeding, I’ll have him call you?”_ Shit, shit, shit, shit.

But waiting really isn’t going to change anything, so Claire selects the last missed call and tells the phone to dial it. As the phone starts to ring she takes a deep breath in through her nose and slowly exhales through her mouth. Does it again. And a third time –

“Nelson and Murdock, Karen speaking.”

Karen sounds about as frazzled as Claire feels.

“Ummm…yeah. My name is Claire. You keep –”

“Foggy! I’ve finally got her!”

Claire starts cursing silently. Her own concern for Matt has always been…quieter…than what’s she’s hearing now. Not necessarily lacking depth – she understands all too well what he risks, especially back in the pre-body armor days. But it’s never occurred to her to panic over his safety or lack thereof. Maybe because she knows how lethal he could be if he chose.

She wonders if Karen knows what Matt does in his off hours.

“Claire? This is Foggy Nelson. We met when Matt got…hit by the car.”

In the background Claire can hear Karen disagreeing with that version of events, which proves two things: the other woman isn’t stupid, and she knows nothing about Matt’s nighttime routine.

“I remember. Did Matt give you this number?” She can’t imagine he would give her number away to anyone, even as an emergency contact. He is too violently opposed to leading anyone back to her to do anything so sensible.

“I stole it the last time I had to call you. What the hell is going on? I get a call from Matt’s gym saying that his things were found in the alley out back this morning along with a bunch of trash cans that’d been knocked over and his smashed cell phone –”

Wait. He’d called her to get in.

It’s fucking hot outside and now she’s curious, so she grabs both pairs of Matt’s pants and climbs back inside. Her apartment is slightly cooler than the air outside; she tosses the clothes aside and starts looking around, while listening to Foggy vent with one ear.

Matt’s burner phone sits in the corner underneath a table. She crouches down and picks it up gently. It means something that he had the burner on him where he couldn’t lose it, but she can’t think about that now.

“Claire? What’s going on?”

“I…” The hell if she knows. “Matt’s safe. I don’t know what else I can tell you.” She sets Matt’s phone on the table, where it’ll be harder to lose track of it. “You’re the lawyer; you tell me if any of what I do is covered by patient/provider confidentiality.”

“Sounds like a morality question. Why don’t you get Matt on the phone and we can confer.”

“Can’t. He’s finally sleeping.” Claire smiles wearily and shakes her head. “Look. Matt got jumped and then he came here so I could patch him up. He should be fine.”

There’s a hesitation before Foggy speaks again, and she kicks herself for sounding anything less than confident. “Okay. Did he know who jumped him?”

She weighs her options. Matt obviously didn’t want his friends to know about this; he’s here, with her, where they can’t find him. But what if not saying something puts Matt’s friends in danger? He’d never blame her, but he also would never forgive himself.

“I hear you have a case going that involves amateur film directors,” she says slowly, hoping she’s saying both enough and not too much. “I believe they thought a blind lawyer would be easy to…coerce…into dropping matters.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. Claire waits it out, letting Foggy put the pieces together.

“I’m sorry, but are you telling me that Matt’s been –”

“Yeah. He got here safely, but he’s…having a rough time.” Claire listens to the silence play out, thankful that it seems as if she’s not on speaker phone. Giving bad news doesn’t usually fall under her purview. It’s just as hard as she always thought it’d be. “Um… Still there?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Guess that answers why Matt’s actually sleeping. Good thing you’ve always been so eager to play nurse.”

The insinuation is in his tone more than anything, and it’s so unexpected that Claire is struck speechless for a moment. A short moment. Then her blood pressure skyrockets so fast that her temples start throbbing and she might actually see red. She stands, prepared to vent her own frustrations on someone who is _intact_ enough to fight back, but motion in the hallway catches (steals) her attention.

Matt.

The anger doesn’t go away, but she does manage to leash it.

“I didn’t call so you could insult me,” she says, interrupting Foggy’s demands that she give him her address. “Look, the two of you need to watch yourselves, okay? I’m really not looking to take on new patients right now.” And she hangs up, setting her phone beside Matt’s. (She is once again shaking with anger; her fingers stutter over the screen as she tries to turn the alert notification to silent.)

Matt hovers, lingering in the space between hallway and living room, trapping her where she is. He’s giving nothing away (she hates when he wears those glasses), which means he probably overheard enough to be suspicious of what’s going on, but not enough to comment on it. And she’s sure as hell not going to fill him in. She figures that by the time this drug has worked through his system, he’s going to need a safe place. And that place probably won’t be with her anymore.

“Claire –”

“I have clean clothes for you.” Distraction. She grabs his clothes and walks across the room to press them against his chest, holding them there until he reaches up with one hand to take them. “How are you feeling? Half a protein bar isn’t much. I could cook up some eggs –”

Matt catches her arm as she tries to brush past him. “Claire? Check in with me.”

She hesitates, the now familiar words snagging her as surely as the hand on her arm. There are words trapped in her throat, losing their individual meanings the longer they remain unsaid. If she opens her mouth she doesn’t know if she’ll word vomit in anger or just start screaming incoherently.

None of which Matt should have to deal with.

“I’m fine.” She pulls herself free and pushes into the kitchen. He doesn’t follow, not immediately. But he will. Does. Wearing pants this time instead of a towel. Makes it easier to pretend that…

…that this falls somewhere within their range of “normal.”

She fills a glass with water and pulls a banana off the bunch on top of her fridge. “You should start with these,” she says as she pushes him to sit on the bar stool in the corner and sets everything at his side.

He drinks the water straight down, but plays with the glass after she refills it. He looks pensive; she leaves him to it and dumps out the coffee in her maker’s carafe so that she can start a new batch. Granted, the caffeine probably won’t do much for her headache thanks to the way it elevates heart rates and that’s the culprit behind the headache in the first place, but –

“This is a bad time to start lying to me, Claire.”

 _God **damnit**!_ She resists the urge to slam the carafe back into place. Or the cabinet closed. Or her hands against the counter. “Just…just leave it alone, Matt.”

He doesn’t. She can hear him getting up and walking towards her. Doesn’t take long; her kitchen is not large. Unwilling to stop him (also unwilling to help him), she gives in and slams her hand against the counter. A few times. Until he takes her hand and wraps it in his own.

“I don’t… I’ve never seen you angry like this.”

“Technically –” _Technically you’ve never “seen me” like anything._ Claire makes a face and stops herself from finishing that sentence.

“What happened, Claire? Who were you talking to?”

“I’m not angry because of a phone call, Matt.”

“Then you can tell me who it was.”


	6. Chapter 6

She tells him (as little as possible), and spins it as best she can (“If I were them instead of me, I probably wouldn’t trust me either.”), but he gets very quiet. Doesn’t demand a phone, doesn’t try to call anyone himself (as she was half suspecting), just goes quiet and still. As if he too had forgotten about some of the real world consequences of all this.

“It’s really… It’s not a big deal, Matt. So your friends don’t trust me. It’s not as if we hang out socially.” That makes him look sadder, if anything. Maybe that’s why she lets him reach out and brush his fingers over her cheek (or maybe the stress of all this is getting to her too).

And really, this only becomes a problem if no one trusts her enough to call her the next time they find Matt bleeding out.

“You deserve better,” he murmurs, fingers sliding towards her ear, her hair. She pulls away before he can get there because of the two of them, she is not the one who needs comfort.

Lie.

Of the two of them, she is the one who cannot _afford_ comfort.

But, _god_ , does she want it. She wants him to hold her for just a few minutes and assure her that they are in this together. (If he is in a lull, she will not risk sparking a new episode; if he is in an episode, physical contact means nothing.) She wants to be reassured that she still has his trust, his confidence.

She wants this, their first (only?) steps into physical intimacy to not be filled with pain, and anger, and fear.

She wants the impossible.

“Claire –”

And there’s no… How the hell is she supposed to _tell_ him that without him taking it the wrong way and making him feel worse? There’s a lot of things she doesn’t know _about_ Matt, but she _knows_ him, a bone-deep conviction that at her first sign of hesitation, he will cease to cooperate. That he will always put her needs first.

“What do you want me to say? This _sucks_ , okay? I’m tired, and I _smell_ , and this fucking heat wave, and all I want is a cup of coffee so I can at least pretend to be a rational, functioning human being ­–”

“Hey. Hey, no. Shhhh…” Matt settles his hands on her shoulders, the pads of his fingers pressing into the skin revealed by her tank top. He doesn’t attempt more, maybe because she’s rebuffed him once or maybe because it’s as close to an embrace as he can manage right now, though she supposes it doesn’t really matter. If he _had_ tried more, she probably would have tried to hit him and either failed miserably or ended up hurting her hand because of his stupid physique. “You don’t smell.”

She laughs (short, hard, mildly bitter) and forces herself to relax long enough to suck down a deep breath. Matt’s hands on her shoulders guide her backwards, until she’s the one sitting on the stool (and he’s holding her there like he’s afraid she’ll bolt if he moves). (She might; he shouldn’t have to take care of her.)

“When’s the last time _you_ ate something?” he asks softly, while pushing the glass of water in her direction.

“Thirty minutes ago? Had a plum and a protein bar.” She obediently drinks the water though her eyes stay trained on her coffee maker.

“Okay. Can I make a suggestion?” Claire looks at him, glad that out of all the cues he manages to pick up from and about her, he can’t actually see her. This would all be a hell of a lot harder if he could. And not just because she must look terrible. “Why don’t you go take a shower, and I’ll make the eggs.”

That sounds… Well, it’s the best offer she’s gotten in awhile. But, “Are you feeling up to that? I’m supposed to… I drank your water.”

Matt pulls away and she…she has a sinking feeling in her stomach. His expression is flat as he reaches over and fills up the glass pointedly.

“Okay, but –”

“I think I can get through the next thirty minutes without jerking off.” He sets the glass down hard enough for water to slop over the edges. “Stop babying me and go take care of yourself.”

He’s…angry. And she reacts accordingly, temper sparking and quickly dying into something a hell of a lot closer to heartache. ( _This is why you didn’t want your heart tangled up in this_ some distant part of her whispers.)

And there’s really nothing to say. He’s right. And she’s not exactly unjustified in the behavior. They’re both right and it changes nothing. That’s that.

Since there’s nothing to say, Claire gets up and…goes. Goes into her bedroom and finds clothes she hasn’t been wearing for over a day. Goes into the bathroom and starts up the shower, adjusting it to something slightly more temperate than lukewarm. Gets in and tries to let the sound of water on tile and the pressure of the spray settle her.

 

+

 

Claire’s right. The heat doesn’t help anything. Just the weight of the air on his skin is enough to make him want to strip down, and he’s barely clothed as it is. He stands, unconsciously mimicking her earlier position; head bowed, arms braced against the counter, fist tapping lightly against the Formica. The water in the shower starts up and he flinches, as if he’s the one unexpectedly under the spray. His senses are in a state of hyperactivity that’s extreme even for him.

It’s complete torture. To be so aware of every scent (Claire), sound (Claire), flavor (Claire)…to be unable to redirect his attention away from any of it. To know that the only reason he’s not hard right now is that his body is wearing out from the constant use. To have everything in him _screaming_ that Claire is gravity, and magnetic north, the heat of the sun, and the sound of running water in an otherwise barren landscape of static…

If he had any energy to spare, any thought past getting (them) through this, he might be angry too. Instead he is…tired. And Claire closing him out doesn’t help. Just leaves him feeling even more isolated.

He’d heard her heart start racing, loud and insistent enough to pull him out of a fretful sleep. Had been left senseless by the conflagration of her anger, the heat of her body overpowering anything else he might be able to tell about the space they occupied. (Had momentarily wanted to fall at her feet and pray that she could simply burn the drug out of his veins with nothing more than the heat and pressure of her fury.) But she’d stabilized, or he had, and the space between them was once again more than the simple distance from one room into the next.

No, the space between them has always been the space that separates light from dark. Day from night. He’s never been privy to the collision of that liminal space. Had been unconscious for whatever words she and Foggy had exchanged over his bleeding body. (Hadn’t been in a position to ask, after, when his relationships with them both were crumbling for all his tentative efforts to keep them.)

Part of that has been intentional; his need to repay Claire’s compassion with his caution for her safety and his attempts to keep the mask he wore and all that went with it from Foggy. And now, the most important people in either part of his divided life, at odds with each other for wanting the same thing.

This isn’t want he wanted.

(Claire’s right about that part, too. This isn’t what anyone in their right mind would ever want.)

_Claire, Claire, Claire, Claire…_

She may be fighting against him with every weapon at her disposal, but he has no such defenses. Even now, hurt and wearied as he is by her refusal to give (or receive) anything but cold physicality, she is still the pounding of his pulse, the eye of his storm.

The coffee she’d started has finished brewing. There’s nothing he can do about the heat; Claire might be tired, but he knows her, and she won’t do more than catnap until this is over. He’s already shooed her into the shower (despite the argument it’d caused), which means at this point, the least (most) he can do is take her a cup of coffee. (It hurts. Hurts. Hurts.)

He doesn’t know if she just doesn’t hear him, or simply ignores his trespass, but she doesn’t react when he sets the mug down on the bathroom counter and quietly leaves again. They both need to eat, and if Matt has to endure one more moment of Claire’s defensive selflessness, he will break.

 

+

 

Claire sees the coffee the moment she steps out of the shower. She stops and stares and watches the steam lazily coil up and up until there’s nothing left of it to see. It doesn’t go anywhere. Matt has actually brought her a cup of coffee.

It’s hot and sweet and strong, just the way she likes it. And it breaks her. Not because she finally has a cup of coffee that hasn’t been sitting on a warmer for the better part of four (or eight, or sixteen) hours, but because of who brought it to her. And why. That simple cup of coffee is a reflection of who Matt is – and what she has limited him to by the limits she’s put on herself.

Turns out it’s not all the shit they’re dealing with that reduces her to tears, it’s this glimmer of what they are beyond it.

She’s careful to stay silent, to wipe her tears on the towel, to erase their presence as fully as she can. But even if she doesn’t allow herself the luxury of sobbing, the simple gesture relieves some of the pressure that’s been crushing her from the inside.

 

+

 

The building is an old one, full of the creaks and squeaks, and moans of old timber and  settling foundations. And Claire’s hesitant steps hit what must be every loose board and joist between the bathroom and the kitchen. He doesn’t respond visibly, doesn’t turn to face her, but he doesn’t know what her state of mind is (Dangerous.) and can’t keep from breathing deep and trying to gather what ephemeral information he can.

She’s still running warm, but no longer feverish. She brought the coffee out with her. She’s been crying.

The part of him (majority of him) that craves her approval and acceptance shrivels and wants to send him to his knees in front of her in search for absolution. Instead he locks his knees and turns the heat off under the scrambled eggs and slowly turns to face her, ready to apologize for whatever it is, however it is –

“I’m sorry.” Her voice, small and uncertain, beats him to the punch. “I’m sorry I forgot.”

Oh. _Oh._ Not (entirely) his fault. “Forgot what?”

She shrugs, and he can hear a chain reaction of pops and snaps from her spine and shoulders. (Not entirely his fault, but his fault.) It tips the scales between action and inaction. He approaches slowly and carefully – ready to be rejected at any moment – slides his arms around her shoulders. And she comes willingly, resting her damp head against his shoulder and letting out a deep, shaky sigh.

“This,” she attempts to clarify. “It’s not all hitting people and making life difficult for bad men. It’s about taking care of people, too.” She’s all trembly and shifting and he almost lets go, but Claire merely moves until she’s pressed into his side rather than his front.  And then she leans into him and just…rests.


	7. Chapter 7

Claire rests, and Matt’s world stills, just for an instant. He’d wanted her to stop _fighting_ so damn hard, to let him be himself (rather than her patient) for just a moment. Now that he has it, has _her,_ pressed up against him and practically boneless in her exhaustion, he isn’t sure what to do.

What’s worse, he can feel his body gathering itself for another futile attempt at finding release. It’s still distant and unfocused – like the first vibrations of the tracks that precede a train – yet ominous. But this is a gift (this witness to Claire’s vulnerability), and he’s not about to surrender it lightly, no matter what his body might want (crave).

He tries to focus on the sheer discomfort of the situation. The air is still close and humid; her sternum is pressed so hard against his ribcage that he almost can’t take a full breath; the scent of her soap is so much harsher than her natural scent. But balanced against that is Claire’s breath, hot and damp against his chest; her eyelashes brush against his skin slowly (as if she’s having trouble keeping her eyes open). He strokes a hand up and down her spine in time to her slow breaths and is rewarded by a nearly silent sigh of contentment. More and more of her weight presses into his side until he’s the only thing keeping her upright.

He’s not about to give this up.

(He can’t give it up.)

They’re both exhausted – running on too little sleep, too little sustenance, and too many emotions. Rationally, Matt knows he’s endured worse – for example, he’s not suffering from blood loss – but there is a heaviness to his limbs and a fogginess to his thoughts that is dangerously subversive.

Perhaps he should have been able to anticipate this. That in its waning – in its very lack of overpowering lust – that the unbalance in his body and his brain would become more insidious. More reasonable. Harder to brace against.

To resist.

She murmurs something that might be his name, or might just be a wordless sound of relief. Her heart, which has been laboring too loudly, slows…until those distant rumbles start to coalesce, a restless tingle in his spine. He can control them still. _He can._ He has a reason to, a reason to hold it off as long as possible.

His arms start to loosen as he fights against the instinctive tension of his own body. Claire’s heart starts hammering again and as if to prove her statement that bodies are just bodies, hers stiffens as she prepares to pull away. As if that’s what he wants.

He leans back against the counter, shifts enough that her breasts are pillowed against him instead of the uncompromising solidity of her bones. (He can control this.) She stays tensed for a moment, almost hyperalert, until he flexes his arms around her, shushes her and deliberately, breath by breath, relaxes his own body.

Slowly she starts to settle back in, though there’s a lingering tautness in her muscles, in the way her neck doesn’t quite let the weight of her head hang freely.

_Claire._

Claire hurts. Claire shouldn’t hurt. Claire hurting hurts him.

Here is what he misses: by pure, unfortunate happenstance, Claire’s signs of physical distress are almost a mimic of his own. Her fingers first curl into the skin of his shoulder and back, and then stroke back out in restless metronome. She trembles when he brushes her hair away from her neck. Her face presses into his throat with gentle insistence. And the goal that had been so clear – make Claire’s pain go away – changes to something slightly less altruistic.

_Make Claire feel good._

It’s innocent enough to start, to take that first step, to press that first kiss to the crown of her head. (Heat; a scent like rain hitting hot pavement as the heat of her filters through her hair and causes it to dry; the scent of Claire; _Claire_.) She reacts by pressing closer (scrape of nails, he shivers, she sighs). Encouraged, he lets his lips drift down – still innocent – brushes dry kisses to forehead and temple and cheek. Gets lost in the scent of tears and coffee, the faint echo of what must be his own scent transmuted by the underlying perfume of her skin.

He doesn’t even notice the steps from _make Claire feel good_ to _Claire feels good._ Too entranced by his own senses, too hungry for whatever crumbs of herself Claire is willing to share with him, Matt doesn’t notice how far from his original purpose he’s strayed.

+

 

Claire pretends she doesn’t notice the kisses that are brushed along her hairline and pressed into the top of her head. Maybe she’d be able to stop this in its tracks if she hadn’t seen the isolation on Matt’s face. If she weren’t so damn tired. But she had and she is and it’s no longer about whether or not she can afford to be comforted, but also about whether she can afford to turn away from it. The last few (centuries) hours have been about Matt to the extent that…well, she’s crippled him. Taken away all of his choices until she’s ready to present him with new ones.

Yeah, she did it with the best of intentions, but there’s a saying about good intentions and the road to hell. And now, stuck in the middle of helping him to do things he hates – no matter how much physical pain she might be saving him – she is once again doubting her own choices.

There is nothing about this entire debacle that doesn’t make her hate her own part in it.

So – wisely or unwisely – she pushes that little bit closer and keeps pretending. Closes her eyes and pretends that this is okay. Pretends that she’s ducked her head under his chin a thousand times before, that the tangle of feet and bumping of knees is a known intrusion, that the arms around her are an offered shelter from the rest of the world and not just another stolen intimacy.

And Matt… _Ohhh_ , but does Matt respond. He is… Gentle? Reverent? Adoring? Claire doesn’t know if she has the words to define it, but damn if she doesn’t respond in turn. She arches – stretches – into his body, lips grazing his jaw. His cheek. Her nose bumps against the lower rim of his glasses, and she…slowly…slides her hands up (over vertebrae, scapulae, and clavicle), up (her fingers graze over trapezius and Adam’s apple), up (over jugular and earlobes), unwilling to give up the supple, heated expanse of his skin.

He stalls her progress momentarily, when he captures one hand and presses kisses to the tips of her fingers, the ball of her thumb, the inside of her wrist. He tries to press his face into her palm, but she slips her hand free and instead slides his glasses off his face. While one hand fumbles to set the glasses on the counter behind him, the other combs through his hair, holds him still enough that she can brush her lips under the abraded skin of his cheekbone. (If only kisses actually made things better.)

(She screws her eyes more tightly shut and tries to pretend that they do.)

(When his hands start to stroke up and down her sides, she doesn’t stop that either.)

 

+

 

Matt handles Claire like he would a work of art. Traces the curves and planes of her as if she is the _Nike of Samothrace,_ or the _Pieta_ …or something he’s being allowed to see for the first time. (She is strength; she is a breaking heart; she is mysterious and awe-inspiring.)

She is his. _His Claire_.

And she is soft, soft, soft in his arms, in a way that only seems to happen when she is hurting.

His right hand digs into the knots of tension in her neck, pain he can hear as well as feel. (Would her pain be so compelling for him if could not hear it so clearly?) His left anchors her in place against his side – not that she seems inclined to go anywhere. Rather, she seems inclined to return his soft caresses; her lips brush over his cheek, the hinge of his jaw, the tender skin behind his ear. Her fingers trail over his chest, trace his ribs, dance over his belly before returning to the safer territory of his back.

The warmth of her lingers behind, as if his body is territory free for the claiming. (All she has to do is say the word and he’d gladly surrender.) She is a furnace at his side, and all he wants is to throw himself into her and be tested by the flames.

 

+

 

Claire wants so much for this to be okay, to be equal, to be honest and, and ethical, that she forgets how _mutual_ this…this _potential_ between them has always been.

She wants it _so_ much, is so _tired_ (of everything, of fighting him, of fighting herself) of attempting to prove herself _right_ at all costs that she hesitates one crucial second too long as his lips nudge against hers. The kiss is as soft as the ones he’d dotted over her face. But somehow imploring. Needy. (So needy.) He gently catches her bottom lip between his. And it is as it was before, when she was aching and scared; Matt is solid and strong under her hands.

For a moment – for a single moment too long – Claire keeps pretending. Lets her lips soften and part under the press of his mouth.

Then Matt moans – low, rough – and it startles her back to herself.

_Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god. What am I **doing**?_

 

+

 

Claire stills suddenly and completely, a living sculpture but for the quick puffs of her breath that brush against his cheek. And he realizes (again) that she will not stay, that this moment is perhaps his only, his last, his best chance…

 

+

 

Panicked (this not fair, Matt is fixated on her, she cannot allow this), dismayed at how far she’s allowed this to go, Claire jerks away. Or tries to, at least.

Seeing Matt in action and, well, being the one he’s acting against, are two very different things. Her heart thumps alarmingly to find herself pressed up against her kitchen counter, the near full weight of Matt’s body pinning her in place. He takes full advantage of her gasp of (shock, instinctive fear) surprise, deepening the kiss, turning it into something no longer innocent. And she can’t help it; she tries to push him away (tries to pull away) but he is…relentless. He nips (bites) at her bottom lip hard enough to make her gasp, to make it throb. The arms that seconds before were comforting are now confining. (She is trapped as surely as she was by the Russians.)

And – god, but there’s a part of her (a tiny, unguarded piece of her that rears its head when she’s half asleep and desperate) that has (fantasized) wished for this. For a reason to just surrender. Stop fighting.

(If it were just the two of them, if there were no third party involved, she’d launch herself at him and ride him until they were both breathless.) But he doesn’t want this, not really. No matter what story his body may tell, it’s just that. A story. And she’d _promised_ that she would take care of him.

This is her fault. She shouldn’t have allowed things to start, much less get this far.

Claire stills her body as best she can, and waits for an opportunity to fix this.

 

+

 

Claire trembles. (Claire should not be scared. He is right here. He will keep her safe.) Matt presses closer, holds tighter, delights in the sprawl of her legs and the arch of her back. Pulls back slightly – ever so slightly – and holds her steady with a hand at the back of her head, the nape of her neck, as he brushes tender kisses over her mouth. Her lips are (swollen) (hot) (addictive) (his)…

(All his.)

“Matt –”

He kisses his name from her mouth. (His. _His Claire._ ) Devours whatever he can of her. (And she is a feast for his senses. Soft and hot and fragrant and the pulse shaking him like thunder pealing directly over his head.)

She is…

She is…

He starts shaking as the flood of input his senses have been collecting starts to actually process. _No, no, no, no._

Matt’s hands convulse, and some distant part of his brain knows it’s hard enough to bruise, but his body is only partially under his control. He doesn’t (can’t) stop kissing her, is only able to slow down, to gentle, to…to…

There’s the taste of blood in his mouth and he doesn’t think it’s his. (There’s not enough for it to be his.)

His hands relax slowly (reluctantly, grudgingly even) before dropping to his side. He’s vaguely aware of how hard he’s breathing but most of his attention is on the deep breaths Claire drags in through her mouth. (The air brushes past his lips before it flows through hers.) (If nothing else, he is inside her in this most elemental of ways.) (He’s a bastard for even thinking that.)

He shakes his head against her forehead. (He still can’t pull away.) (He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t.) (He can smell the fear on her.) This isn’t… This was supposed to make her feel better. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. This isn’t…

 

+

 

Claire doesn’t know what to do. If she keeps her distance, she hurts him. If she gets close, she’s a trigger. And if she pushes him away right now? She can only imagine what would happen then.

Matt doesn’t (Won’t? Can’t?) lift his head from where it rests against her forehead. He’s murmuring to himself, almost nonstop, and too quiet for her to hear. Not that she needs to hear the exact words when she can hear the tone. The sound of his guilt makes her decisions easier to make.

“Shhh…” There’s enough blame to go around for everyone, and none at all. “Shhh… Matt. We’re okay. We’re okay.” She cups his face between her hands and sighs. “We’re going to be okay. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh geewhiz. This is the hardest thing I've had to write in recent memory. The balancing act required for this chapter was completely insane. I think I need to go fill one of the easier, non-character driven smut prompts just for fun.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is a beast of a chapter, but I wanted to power through this last of the drugged!Matt bit, and move on to the awkward morning after phase of the story. And, thanks to certain reviewers who shall remain anonymous, I've got ideas brewing for a sequel to this fic. So, thanks for that. :P

They lie on her bed, facing each other. The space between their bodies is…significant…but it’s also bridged by outstretched arms. Their fingers aren’t quite entwined, but they touch, just about the only point of contact Matt’s exhausted and oversensitive body can handle anymore.

(For all she knows, he can’t handle any of it anymore, but is too goddamn stubborn to give up.)

Time feels like it’s stopped, trapping them in an odd stasis where Matt’s body struggles with the ebb and flow of an unrelenting restlessness. Claire hadn’t thought that anything could be worse that the sense-stealing violence of his…episodes…but this unchanging tension is wearying.

It doesn’t help that there’s _nothing_ she can do to help. Well, next to nothing. (The trust inherent in Matt’s extended fingertips should not be overlooked.) After their moment in the kitchen she’d been terrified that he would leave. That he would believe that the potential risk he posed to her would finally outweigh his current situation. Instead he’d slipped into caregiver mode with a vengeance, and she, afraid to exacerbate his condition by arguing, had backed off. Had eaten what was put in front of her and gone to bed like he’d asked (demanded).

Actually falling asleep had been beyond her, but then, staying away had been beyond him. They haven’t spoken a word since the last time she’d asked him to check in with her. But there’s not a lot left to say.

She hadn’t broken them with her careless behavior earlier.

Their fingers say the rest.

 

+

 

She watches him struggle. Watches as his muscles twitch, as his hair grows damp with sweat, as his eyes dart back and forth behind clinched eyelids. He’s edged slightly closer, has fully enveloped her hand in his own. Sometimes he tightens his grip until her bones ache (she would endure more pain, if giving it to her would relieve him); sometimes she just strokes her thumb slowly over the inside of his wrist as he seems to fall into a doze. (Sometimes she comes back to herself to find him returning the favor.)

They’re in a white-knuckled moment when Matt breaks the silence. “What time is it?”

She tries to answer but her throat is dry and her voice emerges as a rough croak. She’s doing a terrible job at this nursing thing, because there’s nothing to drink in the room with them. What she does have is Matt’s complete attention, a full-bodied tension that makes her ache just to see it. She shakes her head and clears her throat, accepts the bottle of water he fumbles from somewhere. (At least one of them is thinking ahead.) It’s room temperature but wet; she presses the bottle back into his hand.

“Your turn. You’re still running a fever.”

He takes even smaller sips than she had; she stops him from putting the lid on and pushes the bottle back towards his mouth. “Dehydration bad.” But despite her sage advice, he hands her the bottle, mimicking her non-verbal instruction to drink. So she takes a longer drink and passes the water back.

When they drain the bottle, Claire groans and sits up. Her headache throbs behind her eyes before settling into something slightly less severe. She scrubs her hands through her hair angrily and presses her fingers into the line of her brow. The darkness behind her eyes dims slightly and she groans before she drops her hands to her lap and looks at her alarm clock.

“It’s a little after three. How are you feeling?” The last time she’d asked, he’d been a solid five, and she can’t imagine he’s started feeling any better.

Matt shakes his head stiffly. She sighs and presses her forehead to her upraised knees.

 _How long can we keep going? How long can we last like this?_ She should raise the subject of hospitals and medical grade narcotics again. The worst of the strictly sexual symptoms seem to have passed, so maybe –

“How long have I been here?”

She’s not sure _why_ the question raises alarm bells, but suddenly all her other concerns are swept away. Her gaze darts from his fisted grip on her light quilt to the muscle ticking in his jaw, to the brittle set of his shoulders.

“Uhh…you woke me up before midnight.” He shakes head, as if that doesn’t help him in the slightest, and Claire… Well, she desperately grasps at whatever sense of calm she has left. “You’ve been here for about fifteen hours. I’m, um… I’m going to go get more water.”

She shouldn’t, but she flees. Goes straight to the kitchen and stalls out as the implications hit her. Implications she should have been smart enough to anticipate. (Most date-rape drugs include memory inhibiting side effects. This shouldn’t be a surprise. This shouldn’t be a surprise. This shouldn’t be –)

The mug Matt brought her coffee in sits forgotten on the table. She’d drunk all the coffee, but he’d missed it when he’d cleaned everything else.

(– a surprise. This shouldn’t –)

Her hands are shaking again.

(– be a surprise.)

Claire muffles a sob behind a shaky hand. What else is he not going to remember? Is he going to remember that he came here and then called her, or is he going to remember that he called and she came? Because those two things are almost the same, but have _very_ different implications.

She sinks to the floor while _everything_ (the last fifteen hours) rages out of her, harsh sobs contained as best she can behind clasped hands and drawn-up knees. She curls into a ball around herself, but doesn’t fight the hands that pull at her.

(Of course Matt came. That’s not a surprise. At least _that_ isn’t a surprise.)

She doesn’t fight him – not really – but she does lash out. If nothing else (even if she hurts him) she knows he’ll understand the need. But he wraps his arms around her, limiting her movements, constraining her as she struggles with the enormity of her… Grief? Loss? Rage? He provides the illusion of not being alone in this.

But she is. Oh god, she is so _alone_ in this. There’s no telling what – if any – of this he’ll remember, or what those incomplete memories will do to them. _(Oh god, even their **misery** is being stolen from them.)_

There is a distant, tiny, rational part of her that observes her behavior and sees it as an overreaction. But mostly she’s consumed by the fear that she potentially has just hours left where Matt thinks of her and thinks of safety, and of those two concepts existing in the same space.

That thought drains the rage out of her, leaving behind grief and loss. Her headache throbs and her muscles tremble, and Matt shifts her into his lap. (She isn’t surprised, and she shouldn’t allow it, but she does, and this is all so fucked up.)

Time passes oddly as they sit on her kitchen floor, measured by heartbeats and the drone of her fridge, and the slow, unsteady stroke of Matt’s hand over her back. It’s forever and it’s no time at all before their combined body heat and her own growing sense of mortification (She _has_ to get a grip.) have her shrugging out of Matt’s arms and sliding out of his lap.

They sit shoulder to shoulder, Claire attempting to get her riotous emotions under control and Matt probably focusing on everything and nothing all at once and picking up a lot more about her state of mind than she’d like.

“Check in with me?”

Staring ahead dully, Claire rubs at her split lip to give herself a physical pain to focus on. Exhaustion creeps in around the edges of her consciousness. Beside her Matt’s body is still wracked by twitches and spasms; comforting her must have cost him. And that only underscores her persistent dilemma: how to tell Matt what’s bothering her without him taking it personally. (He can’t go. Not yet.)

She slowly shakes her head in response to his question, not sure if she’s refusing to answer or if that _is_ her answer.

He seems to take it personally anyway. Claire watches as he stands up – bracing himself on the counter, one arm wrapped around his ribs as if he’s holding himself together and the other held out to guide him as he walks out of the room. His footsteps move down the hall, go into the bedroom.

Claire sighs and hits her head gently against the cabinets (does it again for good measure), then wipes her face on the hem of her tank top and gets to her own feet. Earlier she’d put some bottles of sports drink in the fridge, and she grabs two of them now, and follows after Matt.

Through the open door she can see Matt lying on the bed, but facing out, his back towards her. He’s curled around himself, shoulders hunched, legs drawn up, feet tucked together. She wonders if he’s cold, would try to get him dressed if she didn’t think that his hypersensitivity would make that an issue as well.

Presented with a simple action (adjust the A/C) to make Matt more comfortable, Claire reluctantly moves into the room. After turning the dial from high cool to low cool she turns back to the bed, tries to make a detached assessment of this man who’s never been _just_ a patient. The best she can do is observe that he looks miserable and remind herself that they’ve reached the point where maintaining basic bodily function is the best they can do.

One of the bottles of sports drink gets set on the floor where Matt can reach it. The other she carries with her as she circles the bed and sits on the edge of the mattress. She keeps her back turned to his and picks at a loose corner of the label as she tries to find _anything_ she can say to explain herself. There’s too much risk that his only clear memories of today will be her refusal to engage with him for her to stay silent.

She could define her pain scale for him, but isn’t sure where to place ten. (Hearing him tell her she shouldn’t fall in love with him? Realizing he was going to walk out of her life with a ten second message on her voice mail? Realizing _she_ needed to walk out of his?) (Zero is easy. That’s life pre-Matt Murdock and his secrets.) She could question him about what he does remember, try to keep those memories fresh in his mind so that he’ll be able to recall them later. (The lawyer in him might even appreciate it.) She could clearly outline each and every thing she feels has been stolen from them, make him share her sense of loss. (She won’t, can’t, put that on him.) (Surely he feels his own losses as keenly as she feels hers.)

The label starts to peel away and she smoothes it back down. Swallows hard.

“I’m scared.”

It’s the best she can do, she thinks as she slides her thumbnail back under the cellophane and works one whole edge free. Smoothes it back down. Repeats the action over and over as she waits for his response.

The bed shifts, but she doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t want to see Matt’s face right now.

Matt’s hand appears in her vision, takes the bottle out of her hands and sets it aside with a minimum of fumbling. His arm wraps around her waist and his chest presses up against the small of her back. To his credit, he doesn’t tell her _not_ to be afraid. Instead he asks, “Of what?”

She wraps her hand around his wrist, or tries to. Her fingers don’t actually meet. From there she strokes her hand down his arm to his elbow, and then back to his wrist. Back and forth, her skin darker than his, the hair on his arm coarser than hers.

Jumpy muscles seem to calm under her touch.

“Claire?”

“I’m scared that what I remember, and what you’ll remember, won’t be the same thing.”

And once again, to his credit, Matt doesn’t discount her fears. But the arm around her waist tightens and tugs until she scoots back far enough to lie down on her side. Matt closes in, taking her hand and spooning behind her, though not close enough that their bodies touch anywhere but for the arm draped over her waist. His forehead presses against the nape of her neck, and she can feel his sigh brush over her skin.

Neither of them say anything else.

 

+

 

Matt holds Claire and doesn’t tell her the things he’s scared of. He’s scared this isn’t going to end. (It will. It has to.) He’s scared of the bruising on her arms and the swelling on her bottom lip, heat radiating from blood pooled under the skin. He’s scared he’s pushed her too far this time, that she will finally sever their relationship for good (It’s the sane choice. The rational one.), and that he won’t be able to make any of this up to her.

The only thing he’s not scared of is what she fears. No matter what he remembers, Claire will be the only point of sanity and stability in the quagmire of sensation his world has become. Is becoming.

(He’s terrified of what the growing ache in his body means, not for himself, but for Claire. It’s only a matter of time before his body hijacks his mind again, and last time it’d taken too long for him register what it was doing to her. What _he_ was doing to her.)

He tries to turn inward, to meditate, give himself a little more time. Claire has only just fallen asleep, true sleep, not the light dozing she’s been dipping in and out of. Waking her would be cruel. But there’s nothing left of his focus, nothing left that isn’t totally and completely fixed on her.

He needs to wake her up.

She needs her sleep.

Torn between the two conflicting facts, both born of the desire to protect her, Matt does the best he can. He pulls his body back, wrapping his arms around his ribs and using every last ounce of his willpower to keep them in place. He keeps his face where it is, tucked into Claire’s neck, where he can hear the slow, steady beat of her heart and can breathe with the shallow rise and fall of her chest. It’s a shoddy compromise, but the best he can do.

 

+

 

Someone is shaking her awake.

It takes a few seconds (the shaking stops), but Claire manages to open her eyes (the shaking starts again, accompanied by a low growl). She stares up at her darkened ceiling (Matt) and wonders (Matt must have woken her up) just how long she’s been asleep.

“I’m here,” she says, voice dull as she turns her head. The crimson display of her alarm clock wavers, and doubles, and wavers again in her sight before settling into legibility. _5:48._ Well. That explains a few things. She’s coming up on 40 hours without more than a single complete sleep cycle; no wonder she’s reached that special kind of dreamy calm.

The room is briefly, and brightly, illuminated before falling dim again. _Oh._ Thunder rumbles almost immediately, making the mattress shake and the loose-fitting bedroom door rattle. Moments later there’s the harsh patter of rain carried by a gust of wind hits the window and pings hollowly off the A/C unit.

The thought of getting some relief from the last few days of oppressive humidity is almost enough to make her giddy.

“Matt?” She sits up, swaying slightly before her inner ear reasserts its authority over her sense of balance, and reaches for the bottle of sports drink next to her. She cracks it open and drinks half of it straight away, ignoring the sting of her lip and the little bit that gets away from her and dribbles down her shirt. “Matt.” He’s shifted while she’s slept, turned his back to her. It’s hard to tell in the dimness, but she doesn’t think he’s asleep. His posture’s too rigid. “Hey, check in with me.”

Maybe it’s her outstretched hand, or maybe it’s the crack of thunder that seems to come from directly overhead, but to say he flinches away would be an understatement. The motion is too violent for that, but she’s too exhausted to come up with a better term.

“Matt?”

He shakes his head, a stiff, jerky motion that makes her own spine ache.

“How bad is it?” When she tries again, slides her fingers through his sweaty hair, he shudders, but leans back into it. Which makes what he says more confusing.

“Go.” His voice is almost lost under another roll of thunder.

“What do you mean?” Her hand stills, but her fingers stay in motion. It’s the same scratching motion she’d use to settle an anxious pet, but that doesn’t really occur to her. Besides, while Matt might not exactly relax, he doesn’t shake her off either.

“I don’t want to do this again.”

“I know.” She leans in and presses her lips to the back of his neck. Just kind of rests there and tries not to let her eyes stay closed for too long. “I know you don’t. How bad is it?”

“Claire.” And there’s that tone, that special kind of desperation. He’s on the edge. “It’s like…needles…under my skin.” His body torques, hips pressing into the mattress before he rolls back towards her. “I can’t… I can’t –”

“Shhh…” She strokes her fingers through his hair again and sighs. (His skin shudders and she shushes him again.) “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Her lips leave a gentle trail of kisses down his spine as she scoots down the bed. The one hand she leaves in his hair, continuing its gentle caresses. Her other hand strokes him in long, languid movements, from shoulder to thigh and back again. And Matt responds so beautifully that it makes her heart ache. He arcs back into her, the back of his head coming to rest against the crown of hers as he starts panting.

She breathes heavily herself and tries to keep the motion of her hand steady. “Matt? Go? …or stay?”

His entire body stretches, extends, from pointed toes to thrown back head. As if he’s jumped off a high dive (or a building, knowing him). “Claire.” And then he just…relaxes into her, and she lets her body be the cradle his needs. “Claire…don’t.” She braces and supports him, lets her arms go around him. “Don’t put that choice on me. Please.”

 _Oh._ That’s…fair.

She holds him as tightly as she can in her arms and clinches her eyes as tightly shut as humanly possible. Wishes she weren’t so damn tired.

“How bad is it?” This one has been brewing for hours longer than the rest. Which is strange, because he seems marginally more…coherent…this time.

 _For now,_ she amends.

“I think…I think I’d be better off with the storm inside me instead.”

“Okay then.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. _Okay._ “Matt, I need you to listen to me…”

 

+

 

They plateau.

Claire can almost feel it coming through the way Matt’s body gets more and more tense, by the way the motion of his hands turns almost violent.

“Stop. Stop, stop, stop.” He’s going to hurt himself. (He’s going to hurt himself more than he already has.) But he doesn’t stop, not without her intervention. She has to pull his hands away and wrap as much of herself around him as possible just to still him a little. And then she has to ignore the way he expresses his pain and frustration, curses and pleas for mercy falling equally from him, drowning out her murmured attempts at comfort.

She’d thought – hoped – she could talk him through this, one last time. That false intimacy and make-believe (Is the intimacy false anymore?) would be enough. But it’s clearly not, and she needs to decide what happens next.

Well, what’s happened so far?

(He twists in her arms, tests the limits of what she’ll allow. Not violently, but like he needs to know, be reassured, that he’s being held back. Restrained. That she’s controlling him.)

 _First, I held him. He was in pain, and I held him._ Her hands on his skin: reciprocal. His face in her neck. Scent. Scent was probably part of it.

 _Then…the couch. I…reassured him. Did I touch his skin?...Yes. His face in my stomach, his hand holding mine. Squeezing._ Had he needed to hear her then, or had that need come later? Certainly there’d been more contact, that time.

 _The next time he…_ He’d tasted her. Had moaned so prettily around her thumb while he’d sunk into the cradle of her spread thighs.

Escalation? More and more of his senses needing to be engaged?

(As he stills, she stops holding so tightly, lets her touch become a gentle play of warmth and attention. _I’m here_ , she says silently.)

 _Think!_ Next had been them in her bed, Matt in her arms, and her in his brain. Guided imagery and sensory tricks. He could believe he wasn’t on his own. Could believe he was wrapped up in his safe place.

“Claire? Don’t go.”

She presses her face into his shoulder and tries not to flinch. The lightning has all but stopped, thunder moving off to a distant and seldom purr of sound mostly overridden by evening traffic.

 _But the kitchen. He was aroused in the kitchen, but…gentle. No desperation until…_ Until she’d tried to leave. Before that he was slow, and content, and…and…

_Perfect._

No. No time for that.

Except.

If this _is_ escalation, then they can wait it out (maybe they can’t wait it out), or she can do something.

“Claire?”

“Yeah. I’m here.” She swallows hard and hopes he’s too far gone to make anything of her suddenly pounding heart. “Still trust me?”

Fast, heavy breaths as he processes the question. “Always.”

“Okay. I need you to sit up.”

 

+

 

Strong hands – _Claire’s_ hands – guide him into position, half-reclined against a pile of pillows. His entire body aches, but nothing to rival the throbbing of his groin. He is too far gone for modesty (is barely hanging on to sanity, much less anything like a social construct), and when Claire doesn’t rearrange the sheet he kicks it off entirely, thinks she understands. (And thanks God that Claire is who she is.)

He’s confused though when she presses a condom into his hand, the square bit of foil with its raised ring in the middle unmistakable.

“I don’t think –”

“Shhh…” She cups his face and brushes a thumb over his lower lip. Back and forth, back and forth, a lulling motion that discourages him from talking. “Trust me, remember?”

Yeah. Yeah, of course he does. But he can’t… He can’t read her. And she doesn’t _want_ –

 _“Trust me.”_ Her lips press against his forehead, and her fingers squeeze his around the condom. “Put that on. I’ll be right back.”

He does as she’s asked, because she asked, but he tracks her movements through the apartment and tries to clear his head. Clear it enough to keep her from doing anything that…that…

She doesn’t want… _hasn’t_ wanted…

She comes back into the room, her steps careful and deliberate, but echoed by the sloshing of water. Not a bottle, or a glass, but a lot of water. Like a basin –

Her soft sound of indecision is followed by the blankets being drawn away (Has she changed her mind? Is the wanting okay now?) and the rasp of… (God, he can’t tell what it is, just that she’s nestling something in the blankets. He thinks it’s the thing filled with water.)

He starts breathing harder, unable to keep his anxiety at bay as he fights his muddled senses for a clearer idea of what’s happening around him. As soon as Claire shifts out of the way he reaches out, needing to _know_ what’s happening –

Something soft lands in his lap, followed by something just as soft but considerably heavier and he can’t help it. He jolts, tries to slide out from under Claire’s weight in his lap.

“Hey, hey… Settle. Settle, Matt.” Her hands land on his shoulders, press him back into the pillows.

Easier said than done. (Pillow. There a pillow between his groin and her…her…) He wraps his hands around her wrists and hangs on. Presses forward enough that she leans more of her weight into him so that the power of her body becomes an anchor, something real that’s keeping him motionless rather than his own lethargy. An outside force that defines him.

Claire doesn’t let up until he does, and even then she presses him into the pillows for a few seconds longer, making sure he’s done as he was told and “settled.”

“Okay. Good. That’s good.”

Matt idly wonders if she’s doing this deliberately, if somehow she’s peeked inside his brain in the last few hours. (He wants to be so good for her.) But mostly he’s lost in the throb of his dick as she continues murmuring soft words of praise and the sting of her fingernails digging into his shoulders as she steadies herself against the restless motion of his hips.

“I’ve got you.”

He nods, unsure of how else to respond. Her words are far more accurate than she knows.

 

+

 

It takes awhile, but the weight of her body on his has something like the effect she’d hoped for. He’s not relaxed, but he is calmer. More focused. She thinks she can get rid of a few more distractions before trying to help him find relief.

(When had she started thinking in euphemism? When had the last of her objectivity slipped away?)

When she thinks she can move without spilling anything, she reaches over for the washcloth floating in the basin of warm water balanced next to them. Matt’s hands fall to her thighs and start exploring bare skin. When she hesitates, distracted by the warmth of his touch, he stills again. (He doesn’t withdraw though, doesn’t move those hands away, just allows them to rest.)

She wrings out the cloth and flicks water off her hands. Being cautious of his overstimulated nervous system, she rests hand and cloth on his chest, over his heart, and gives him a chance to acclimate. To process what’s about to happen.

When he realizes she’s going to help him get clean(er), he lets out a soft (low) (dirty) (needy) moan and relaxes completely under her, leaving his body open to her wishes.

She takes her time. Slowly wipes her hand over shoulders and arms, chest and abdomen. Aware of how close he is to his extremes, she keeps the pressure of her touch heavy, hoping it’ll make the experience more real. This is as much about soothing him as it is about getting him clean.

Not that she doesn’t get a certain comfort out of it too. Out of his obedience to her soft directions, the way he leans into her and tucks his chin over her shoulder so that she can wipe down his back with broad strokes.

She pushes that thought away, guides Matt’s head back to the pillow with a hand behind his neck. “Gonna wash your face now.”

“’Kay.” His hands haven’t moved from her thighs (thumbs on top, fingers curled around and almost under) (Why do his hands have to be so big?), but his fingers stroke her skin restlessly. Just his fingers though; the rest of his body is calm, if clearly aroused.

_Stop. Just stop it._

Water drips inside the bedroom and out as she wrings out the washcloth one last time.

 

+

 

He can barely stand it, how gentle she is with him. His entire life, he can’t remember anyone ever touching him the way she does. His current day-to-day involves far too many people who are more than ready to pummel him at a moment’s notice. Well, that and well-intentioned strangers who touch him with rough hands, like a child who needs to be redirected. His dad had been more rough and tumble, hands hard from the use he put them to but also protective; Foggy’s always been more nonchalant; and Karen…

“Claire?”

“Yeah?” Her voice is throaty. Tired. Warm but distracted. She doesn’t hurry, may actually slow down a little as she runs the cloth over his brow, the bridge of his nose, along a cheekbone and across the cheek.

(Her weight shifts, his heart leaps; his hands tighten on her thighs, her heart skips a beat.)

“Claire.”

“Yeah.” Her weight shifts again as she moves the basin of water to the floor, her hand hanging onto his shoulder as she leans off the edge of the bed. His hands shift to her hips, keeping her stable, providing the balance she needs to pull herself back upright.

He’s there to meet her, their faces close enough that he can hear her wet her lips. And he can’t help it, can’t help the way he presses her down into his aching prick. Her breath catches, but only for a moment. Then she responds to his unspoken plea, her hips leisurely rocking herself into his lap.

“Matt?” Her hands, still damp, bracket his face. Brush through his hair.

“Yeah?” He trembles under her touch. Because she is still in his lap, and he is still wearing…

“Still trust me?”

He just nods. He’s out of any other options at this point. She has to know what she’s doing. Has to believe it’s the right thing. The one thing Claire has never been is selfish; whatever is happening here is not entirely for her benefit.

(But please let her like this. Whatever _this_ is. Please let her need it. Him.)

“Okay.”

 

+

 

(Mine.)

He can smell her.

(Mine.)

Not just the heady scent of her sweat or the way her body heat makes the fragrances from all her soaps and shampoos cloud the air. But her. The salt and musk tang that grows a little stronger with every passing moment.

She’s aroused.

(Claire. Mine.)

He sucks another bruise into her throat, low on her collarbone, the latest in a progression of possessive marks.

He’s caged by her; by the arms braced on the headboard behind him for balance, by the fluid motion of her hips as she… Everything must have hit _her_ just right too, because she’s been holding on to her silence like a miser, which makes her occasional sounds of pleasured disbelief that much more powerful. He growls and bites at the tender skin behind her ear.

His Claire is a genius. The condom keeps him slick where he needs it, and the pillow between their bodies might as well not be there, for all it’s doing to dull the sensation of being cradled by the inviting warmth of her body. (No. Not true. It dims everything just enough that he doesn’t become overwhelmed. But he _wants._ )

He’s been holding on to her arms, using them as leverage to thrust up into the steady rocking of her body. But the soft _hhhehh-hhhehhh_ of her breath against his cheek is too tempting an invitation to turn down. He cradles (captures) her head in one hand, fingers tangling in her hair, thumb pressing into the tender skin under her jaw, and lurches forward to press his lips to hers. There’s no finesse left in him, very little gentleness, but he manages to pull himself back enough that he doesn’t just take _everything._ He slides his lips along the full curve of hers, attracted to the split in her bottom lip where he can taste so much _more_ of her than he can anywhere else. (Not nearly enough when he can smell how wet her body is getting.)

Claire tries to turn away, maybe to pull back, maybe to push closer, but he holds tighter. Touches his tongue to a velvety inner lip, biting lightly at the small wound and grinning as it swells under his touch. (There are other places he could put his mouth, other places where she’d swell against his tongue if he sucked just right.)

He skates his other hand down her arm, wanting (needing, longing for) the weight of her breast in his hand, the press and furl of a nipple against his palm, but Claire moves her hands to his chest and slams him back into the pillows. The heels of her hands dig into the tender spot where clavicle meets sternum, and he…he…

_Oh god. Oh –_

“Claire. Please. Claire.”

And somehow she knows, knows to rest more of her weight against his chest, and it’s hard to breathe but he pulls her closer, straining against the fast, short, relentless thrusts of her hips, and –

 

+

 

Finally. Matt _finally_ shakes apart under her, his face wrinkled into an agonized grimace and the sounds forced out of him are wounded. She wants to close her eyes and cover her ears, but she is the only witness left to what he’s going through, and he deserves to have his…he deserves to have a witness.

Slowly and with a litany of discomfort, Matt sinks back into the bed, his body limp. Not in a good way, in a _satisfied_ way, but like a man relieved of a constant pain. Claire watches him closely, barely daring to breathe, afraid that her slightest movement will set this is motion again. And they can’t do this again. She doesn’t think his body will take it, frankly, and sure as hell she can’t go through it emotionally. Looking at herself in the mirror is going to be hard enough without pushing herself closer to –

Matt stirs under her. Claire freezes, muscles aching with tension before she almost jumps out of her skin as his fingers find the inside of her thigh.

“No.” She doesn’t sound anywhere near as firm as she’d like.

He frowns, brows lowering over closed eyes. He looks exhausted. (As his head tilts back and his mouth drops open, he looks edible, and she is a terrible human being.) His fingers inch a little higher and she knows he’s trying to smell her, is probably stuck in some kind of sexual feedback loop.

 _This is not happening._ Claire rolls off (of Matt, of the bed) and puts several shaky feet between them. He doesn’t follow, but his arm reaches after her, fingers twitching before curling in a clear “come here” motion.

 _“No.”_ She wraps her arms around herself, holding herself back, holding herself together.

“You’re…” Somehow he must tell she’s glaring daggers at him, daring him to finish that sentence. She’s well aware of the ache in her lower body and the physical frustration of having to stop. _(Bodies are bodies, bodies are bodies, bodies are bodies…)_ “Why? How is this different?” His fingers twitch again, as if to illustrate what having a few less morals would get her.

(Pleasure.)

(Momentary pleasure.)

“Claire?”

There’s only so far she’s willing to go to restore balance to their relationship, and this, right now, is way outside the limits. He’s getting agitated again – which can probably be chalked up to the drugs lingering in his system – but they cannot afford this right now so she’d probably better come up with some kind of answer for him.

“I can wait. You couldn’t.”

He seems to mull that over. “But you don’t have to. Wait.”

“I know. But I’m choosing to.”

Matt, after almost a minute of silence, withdraws his hand and sighs deeply.

 _Okay. Good. This is good._ Doesn’t feel good, but doesn’t feel wrong either. Claire clings to that conviction as she helps Matt get semi-cleaned up. As she tucks him into bed and sets the A/C to fan mode, hoping to help air the room out. As she gathers clean pajamas and a spare sheet. As she goes into the bathroom and runs a washcloth under cold water, pressing it between her legs to drive out the last of her body’s petulant throbbing.

She double checks on Matt after getting cleaned up. He’s twitchy but asleep; hopefully ( _Please, God_ ) whatever’s in his system is on its last legs.

Then she goes into the living room and turns her TV to something mindless as she curls up under the sheet. She’s exhausted but sleep is a long time coming.


	9. Chapter 9

A quiet knock on the door pulls Claire out of her contemplation of her bag of groceries. She glances around her kitchen, looks at the Ziplock bag of protein bars in her hand, sets them down on the counter and turns towards the front door.

She’s so tired. Matt had been restless all night, sleeping and waking in intervals, gradually sleeping for longer periods but waking with nausea, anxiety, and fluctuating blood pressure. Getting him resettled over and over had eaten up time that would have benefited them far more if they’d been able to sleep.

The knock comes again, a little louder. In the bathroom the shower starts up, proving that Matt’s still not at 100%. Or anywhere close to it. She pauses until the sounds change, until the spray of the showerhead hits a body instead of tile, then she shuffles towards the door.

It’s going on 36 hours since Matt showed up on her fire escape. Pretty silly to think that she’d be getting any uninvited guests at this point, but better safe, right? She swings the flap over the peep hole to the side and peers into the hallway. The man standing there is familiar, from the askew tie to the look of concern on his face. He’s carrying an athletic bag, with, Claire assumes, the spare clothes she’d asked him to bring.

She unlocks the door (the knob, the bolt, the chain) and steps to the side as she opens it. “Nelson.” He stands on the threshold, bag joggling slightly as he bounces it in his hand, as if having come this far he’s going to turn away now. (She has Matt; he’s not going anywhere.) But she is exhausted and not the happiest with him anyway, so she dips into a deep bow, arm sweeping out to usher him into the apartment. (It’s a good thing her butt is planted against the wall because while the gesture is sarcastic enough to please her, it does nothing for her sense of stability.)

“Burner phone.” He steps inside, finally, and Claire closes the door after him, flipping just one lock before she leans back against it and lets Nelson make his own evaluation of her. She flinches a little when he reaches over and flips on the overhead light. His eyes crawl over the bruises on her exposed arms, neck, and legs (the godawful humidity has eased but it’s still hot) and Claire can’t keep from jutting out her chin as she fights the instinct to cover the story the last 24 hours have left on her skin. The ill-concealed hostility in his expression fades as he processes what he sees and what it might mean. And since he’s proving he can be an adult and not jump to terrible conclusions about her intent and Matt’s virtue, she shrugs it off. (Shrugs off her lingering resentment, his blooming concern. None of it matters, or helps.)

Without saying anything, she walks past him, back into the kitchen, and listens to him follow after. He’s silent but watchful as she finishes her task. (God only knows what Matt has for food back at his apartment, and she knows what he needs to eat to get back into fighting trim.) (She needs him back in fighting trim. Someone needs to pay for all this suffering.)

“You look…rough.” A chair drags against the linoleum as her guest takes a seat.

“That’s polite.” She knows exactly what she looks like. After _the incident_ she’d worked 36 hours straight in the ER, and while that had been grueling, it hadn’t been…personal. Or isolating. (There is so much to be said for being part of a team.) Her hands shake a little as she pushes her hair back out of her face. “Matt’s in the shower. I have some instructions for…” Well, aftercare is both the right and the wrong word. “I wrote everything I could think of down.” Not that that’s saying a lot right now. “And of course, you know how to get a hold of me.” This is all getting very real very fast. She can’t help feeling that she’s all but shoving Matt out the door.

“You’re very…prepared. Does Matt know I was coming?” His voice is low, tone guarded. It makes her feel defensive.

Claire turns, shrugs, holds her hands out in a gesture of “who knows what Matt Murdock can figure out through body language?” and lets her arms drop. If he hadn’t known, he’d probably known enough to suspect. Just because he’s not on his A game doesn’t make him stupid. “Doesn’t matter. He can’t stay.”

“Why not? You going somewhere?” He’s only slightly less aggressive in his questioning than Matt is. _Lawyers,_ she supposes.

“Eventually. But he’s ready to leave.”

“And Matt told you that? Instead of just jumping through a window?”

She almost laughs. Ask forgiveness, not permission; that’s Matt all over. But the truth is, he doesn’t have to say anything. He’s reasserting his independence, becoming quiet. No longer reaching for her or deliberately waking her. He’s pulling away. And god, she can only imagine the emotional stew he’s probably steeping in, but she can barely keep herself on her feet much less keep up with him and his fading mood swings. It’s time to tap out.

“I mean, he came here for a reason, right?”

It’s a fishing trip. A much more subtle one than the demands (pleas) made over Matt’s insensate body that terrible night. (He’d trusted her then, a little, if for no other reason than his shock and distrust of Matt had been greater.) And still she has no answers for him beyond the bare facts she’s already given. Matt’s vulnerabilities aren’t hers to reveal.

When it’s clear she’s not going to answer, that she intends to maintain her silence, Nelson sighs and slumps back in his seat. “I don’t know if I’m impressed or scared, but I’m never going to play poker with you, that’s for sure.” He wipes his hand over his face, as if in defeat. “Fine. Just… At least tell me if you have a reason for kicking him to the curb. If he…if something happened that he’s going to be tearing himself to pieces over.”

Well that’s…straightforward. “Nothing happened that I didn’t consent to. But what would you do if something had?” She’s curious. He’s obviously loyal to Matt, but what kind of man is he beyond that?

“You know, that’s not a comforting answer.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

They regard each other in silence for several more moments. Running water still gurgles through the pipes; Matt will run out of hot water soon, if he’s taking a hot shower. (She hopes he’s taking a hot shower, and not punishing himself with a drawn out cold one.) And somehow, that thought makes her break her silence. (Matt takes himself far too seriously. That’s why she wants him to stay with someone who has his trust. Someone who gives a damn about him.)

“He can see bruises. Did you know that? Well…not _see_. But he knows I have them.” And knows he caused them. Maybe even knows she doesn’t blame him for them. (Not that she thinks that matters.) “What kind of healing can he do if all he feels around me is guilt?”

“Okay. Makes sense. But is that the truth, or just what you think I want to hear?”

Now she does smile (well, she quirks her lips). “I’m all out of comforting lies, Nelson.” She is so, so tired. There’s nothing more to say here; if she doesn’t keep moving the inertia is going to drop her.

“If you don’t mind waiting on your own for Matt, I need to run some linens down to the basement.” She’s out of clean towels at this point and the sheets from her bed… She can’t imagine sleeping on them and _not_ having bad dreams. But as she tries to walk past the man at her table, he stands, blocking her way out.

“Claire.” His hands rise up, as if to take her by the shoulders, but drop back down almost as quickly, his indecision reflected on his face. “You asked what I would have done if Matt had…if he’d overridden your consent. He’d want me to take care of you first. I think you know him well enough to know I’m right.”

Yes. Matt would choose his friends carefully, would look in them for qualities he believed he lacked. So she nods to cede the point, uncertain if more of a response is needed from her.

“Okay. So why don’t you give me the key or the code or whatever to the laundry room? You don’t need to be going down five flights of stairs with a laundry basket.”

“Oh. But.”

He actually laughs at the look on her face. “I don’t know what Matt’s told you about me. Or even if he’s told you anything about me, for that matter. But we were roomies. In a very small dorm room. Just because we don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I didn’t see things I’d rather not have. Trust me, there’s no such thing as TMI at this point. And I was a jerk yesterday. You should definitely make me suffer.”

“It’s only three flights of stairs.”

“Yeah, that’s the salient point.”

 

+

 

Claire hands over her laundry room key (kept in a caddy along with her detergent, fabric softener, and a coin purse filled with quarters) and gets as far as retrieving a stack of clean sheets from the hallway cabinet before running out of steam. She slumps to the floor beside her bed, leaning back against it and just…closes her eyes.

 

+

 

Something’s changed. Matt hesitates in the doorway to the bathroom, trying to smell something past the scent of old steel and copper piping, beyond Claire’s soap and the slight chemical reek coming out of his own pores. There’s something…familiar.

Foggy. Foggy’s been here. But how…

Claire. She’s the only one here _now_ ; he’s become intimately familiar with the sound of her sleeping body, the throb of her heart and the ever-deepening sigh of her breath.

What has she done?

He’s too tired to make much sense of his surroundings; with one hand held out in front of him he carefully walks to where he can hear Claire’s resting body. He very nearly steps on her (why she’s sleeping on the floor, he can’t guess).

“Claire.” He braces himself against the bed to kneel at her side, has to use his other hand to keep the towel at his waist. “Claire.” Her heart keeps beating slowly (steadily, without falter), but her breath deepens as she stirs.

“Check in?” He can’t tell if she’s asking him to check in, or asking if she needs to.

“I’d say I’m about a three.” His joints hurt too much to keep kneeling beside her like this so he shifts, sits next to her and tucks his towel around his legs. He’s close enough to feel her body heat, but not close enough to touch. “What about you?”

“Don’t know. Tired. My lip hurts.”

He remembers the taste of her on his tongue, just the barest hint of blood. And while he craves the intimacy, his body remains flaccid. (Even his muscles have the consistency of Jell-O.) (And since the craving is nothing new, he can start rebuilding his walls, regaining his distance.)

“What have you done? Why did Foggy come here?”

She doesn’t answer for ages. And he can’t…he can’t read her, is even more blind than usual in the aftermath of all…this.

“You need clothes so he can take you home.”

His stomach drops, heart skipping alarmingly as her words sink in. This shouldn’t be a surprise. The silence between them has grown ever more strained in the last hours, both of them far too aware of abnormal weight the last day has left on them. And of course Claire’s exhausted; having been his sole source of support and supervision has taken its toll. Of course she’d want him to go so that she can take care of herself, tend her own wounds without him hovering in the background.

“Stop it.” Her hand slides over his, wraps around his palm and squeezes. “You need time to get over this without constantly worrying about me.”

“So what. I need a babysitter, but you just need me out of your hair?” He can’t quite control his temper, the way it bubbles to the surface at her presumption.

“Your friend thought I’d fall asleep walking down to the basement, so he took the laundry down for me.”

And just like that, his temper falls away, leaving him cold and stiff with dejection (rejection). He doesn’t want to lose it, but he pulls away from her touch anyway. (Why must she be reasonable?)

Foggy finds them on the floor like that, side by side but locked in a silence that shows the distance between them.

 

+

 

Foggy pulls Claire to her feet and guides her into the living room. When he comes back into the bedroom he closes the door and sighs. It’s not a sound Matt cherishes; it’s the sigh he’d hoped they’d finally gotten past, one full of frustrated worry and directionless anger.

“I don’t know what you did to deserve her loyalty, but she should have dragged your dumb ass down to the nearest hospital and dumped this mess on someone else.”

“I’m not so sure it’s loyalty at this point as much as it is aiding and abetting after the fact.” Matt uses the bed behind him to get to his feet, moving slowly and letting the room spin around him until his blood pressure settles again.

“Bullshit. You’re blind, not stupid. No one puts up with the shit Claire does unless… Forget it.” Something moves past him, displacing the air before landing on the bed. Zippers jangle. When he reaches down he touches nylon. Athletic bag.

“She tell you to bring anything in particular?”

“Yeah. Whatever looked the oldest. Said you’d want whatever looked most comfortable. Was she right?”

“Yeah.” Of course she’d take his sensory issues into account. He opens the bag by touch, rubs folds of cotton together. Can’t tell what he’s touching exactly, but knows he can at least bear to wear it home. “That…upsets you.”

“That supernurse is either psychic or knows you as well as I do? Com’on, Matt, psychics are legit scary rather than scarily efficient.”

“Her name is Claire, Foggy.” The clothes turn out to be a t-shirt and athletic shorts, clean socks and underwear. One of his canes – folded up – sits at the bottom.

“Yeah, and that’s the extent of my knowledge about her. Well, that and she’s got a high tolerance for your melodrama.” He sounds frustrated, and it scrapes at Matt’s temper. But this isn’t the place for it. Claire wants him out of here, not for him to stick around and have things out with Foggy.

He pulls the clothes on slowly, ignoring the protests of his body, the stiffness of his muscles. He doesn’t know where his shoes are – doesn’t know what shoes he wore here. Doesn’t know if there’s anything else he came here with. _Claire will know_. He sets the bag down, out of the way, then feels along the cotton and polyester (mostly polyester) mattress pad.

“What’re you looking for, buddy?”

There’s a pile of neatly folded cotton sitting on the corner of the bed. He sorts through them by touch, setting pillow cases aside, finding the rough texture of semi-exposed elastic.

“Need some help?”

“I’ve got it.” He can’t help the way he snaps at Foggy any more than he can help the way he wants to keep anyone and everyone away from Claire’s bed. (Territorial. The word he’s looking for is territorial.) The back of his neck itches as Foggy watches him work; he knows he appears to be acting out of character, that his ability to rein in his irritations, his impulses, is still compromised.

When the sheets are on, when he’s smoothed out as many wrinkles as he can find, when he’s got the pillows in place (not all the pillows, not…one…pillow) he turns to the door.

“Claire keeps bottles of water in the fridge. Grab a couple.” Foggy might grumble some, but he’ll do it, leaving Matt free to go get Claire.

 

+

 

“Hey.” Matt’s hand strokes over her hair, waking her gently. He’s fully dressed, glasses incongruous with the rest of his gear. He looks ready to play some basketball.

“Could you play basketball?” she mumbles. The question clearly surprises him. “You’d know where the ball was.”

“But not where my teammates were.”

“Shirts versus skins wouldn’t work, hm? That’s a damn shame.” She curls onto her side, closes her eyes again.

“Claire. Wake up.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Gravity’s increased in the last 24 hours; it’s so much harder to push herself up onto her arms. Matt’s hands guide her there, lift her up off the couch. For a moment, a split second, he takes her full weight but they both waver. So he keeps her tucked against his side as they walk to her bedroom, he the support and she the eyes. (Eyes that prickle a little when they see her neatly made bed.)

Between the two of them, they get her eased onto the bed. “Your phone. The burner phone. It’s on my coffee table. And, uh. I put your shoes by the front door.” She grabs both pillows and shoves them under her head.

“Rushing me out of here?” Matt’s fingers brush over her face, pause under her split lip, drift over the mouth-shaped bruises on her neck.

“You’re ready to go.” She pushes his hand away, but holds on. Needing him to listen for just a little longer. “I know you. You’re going to want to dive right back into things immediately. Or sooner. But I need you to do me two favors.”

“Claire, these people need to be stopped –”

“I’m not arguing with that. Just give yourself 24 more hours. Okay? Push fluids, because it’ll help flush your system. Get some sleep. Some real sleep. I packed some food for you. And you need to eat it. Your body will work better if you give it the right fuel.”

He wets his lips; she watches what she can see of his face. He seems surprised; she doesn’t know why. He should know her better than that.

“I take it that’s the first favor. What’s the second?”

She squeezes his hand as tightly as she can, wanting to impress upon him how very, _very_ serious she is. “Be smart. And make them pay.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, apparently S2 is the boost I need to get things rolling again. So many fic ideas, so little time. Apparently I couldn't quite get the angst out in the last chapter and I needed to carry things over for at least another chapter. So here's a chapter of Matt feeling guilty and responsible while my inner Claire fan continues to wail, "BUT WHO IS TAKING CARE OF CLAIRE TEMPLE!?"
> 
> Also important to know for this chapter is that Matt Murdock is an unreliable narrator and his opinions should not be taken as a reflection of reality.

The trip home is nearly overwhelming. The scent of coffee from the shop downstairs almost knocks him off his feet the moment they leave Claire’s apartment. The usual background scent of garbage, and car exhaust, and sweaty New Yorkers is like a pillow over his face once they make it to the street. The slight breeze that makes awnings flap lazily and ruffles posters hanging half-heartedly to walls is almost enough to make him stagger with its occasional gusts. Direction is nearly meaningless, except that he and Foggy are going with the flow of the crowd.

He actually needs his cane to navigate; too much of his attention is being used by making sure he keeps putting one foot in front of the other. In fact, if Foggy weren’t there with him – all of his directions spoken just loud enough for to be heard, none of it provided by a helpful hand – he’s not sure how long it would have taken him to get home. Or if he would have gotten home.

(If he wouldn’t have given up and gone back to Claire.)

(Claire wants him gone.)

(Her apartment had been hot and too close, the space divided, sounds bouncing off walls, pockets of scent, of heat, of…)

By the time they reach his apartment, Matt’s fighting off a creeping sense of claustrophobia. The heat, the people…the way his own skin is still a size too small. Then Foggy closes the door behind them, closes the city out as much as it ever can be, and Matt sighs in relief. Nearly collapses against the closed door; nearly goes comatose with the lack of stimulation.

It’s such a relief.

 _Guess she was right about that, too,_ he thinks as he breathes in the familiar scents – his soap, his fabric softener, his cooking, (Claire is still on his skin, in his hair…but _just_ Claire. None of his own musk.) The thought makes him angry, and sad, and… _known_ …all at the same time. (Who is helping Claire?)

Matt leans against the wall, his mind wandering aimlessly as he listens to Foggy move through the apartment. Quietly. It occurs to Matt that Foggy has been not just quiet, but unusually quiet. (Out of the two of them, Foggy isn’t the quiet one.)

(But God, he does not have the strength to draw Foggy out of it right now.)

The fridge opens and closes. Cabinets get the same treatment. Things get shifted around as if Foggy is putting things, food, away.

Makes sense. Claire sent food.

(He makes a face as he think about eating right now, while his stomach is still tied up in knots.)

Paper rips and rustles, like the way envelopes sound without a letter opener.

“Opening my mail is a Federal offense,” he calls, as if Foggy doesn’t routinely go through it all for him. Moving carefully, Matt shuffles into the living room. Collapses onto the couch, debates slipping out of his shirt but decides that if he starts down that road, he won’t stop. Pulls the blanket off the back of the couch and into his lap instead. The additional weight grounds him.

“Not addressed to you.” The fridge opens again. “Water or colored water?”

“What?”

“Claire says you need to drink at least 16 ounces of something before you crash, and she packed options.”

“Claire says?” Foggy doesn’t answer and Matt sighs (yawns). He anticipates hearing that a lot in the coming hours. “Water.”

Foggy brings a bottle over, setting it in his outstretched hand, then takes a seat in a chair across the room. Matt drains half the bottle in small sips, more playing with the sensation of a liquid in his mouth than anything else. (His throat is dry and the water trickling down it feels more soothing than it maybe should.) Then he plays with the half empty bottle, trying to find the point where he can balance it on a finger. His fine muscle control isn’t what it should be; his hand trembles enough that the bottle will not balance.

“Matt… What the hell happened, buddy? How did this…happen?”

Another balancing act. One he is much less equipped to manage.

“You talked to Claire. She must have told you something before…” He knows what guilt on Foggy sounds like. Is hearing it right now. The memory of Claire’s rage is clear enough, as is the sorrow that followed it. “What did you say to make her so angry?”

“You mean she didn’t tell you?”

Foggy sounds…regretful? Means Matt has a choice right now: keep pushing, find out what was said, and get angry on Claire’s behalf, or allow Claire’s judgment to stand.

He shakes his head slowly. “She said…she said that if she’d been in your shoes, she probably wouldn’t trust her either.” He’s guessing that Foggy probably got more information from Claire than he did.

“Well…damn.” He can hear Foggy rub his hands over his face. “But she’s your _type_.”

“You’ve got to get over that. I don’t have a –”

“You do. You really do. Hot and morally dubious.”

Since Claire supports his “extra curricular activities” to a degree that Foggy would probably be uncomfortable with, Matt lets the comment slide.

“So why didn’t it work out? She’s the one, isn’t she? The reason you got that phone? Or were you lying about that, too?”

This is not a minefield Matt wants to navigate. Doesn’t want to publicly pick at old wounds when he’s still recovering from the current ones. Doesn’t like the thought of betraying Claire’s privacy when she guards everyone else’s so fiercely. (But he does want Foggy to understand, to trust Claire the way he does.) (He wants Foggy’s trust in the way he used to have it.)

“She’s not stupid. She knows a looming disaster when she sees it.”

Oddly (or not), Foggy doesn’t argue with that assessment.

Well, as long as he’s poking at wounds he might as well ask, “How did she look?” It’s easy to hide things from the blind man.

“Like…specifically, or generally?”

Matt knows the specifics. Knows about the bruises and the split lip and the tension in her shoulders. (Knows the warmth of her skin, the timbre of her voice, the taste of her mouth, the hush of her breath.) (Knows she’d hide anything from him about her own condition that she could.) What he doesn’t know what someone who hadn’t spent the day in her apartment would think when they saw her. “The last one.”

“Uhhh… She looked drained. Like you guys had gone ten rounds in the ring instead of in bed.”

“That’s not…” Matt chokes on the number of protests that clog his throat. “That’s not what happened.”

“What did happen? She was disturbingly vague about the whole thing.”

“She took care of me,” he mumbles. The weight of the blanket in his lap starts to grow uncomfortable but not as uncomfortable as the thought of discussing what happened in Claire’s apartment. “That’s all you need to know.”

Foggy sighs heavily. “Okay. Fine. So let’s talk about how this happened then.” The familiar sound of Foggy’s pocket notebook flipping open rustles through the air and Matt groans.

“I’m really not in the mood for a deposition.” Nervous fingers pleat the corner of the blanket over and over.

“Claire says –” Matt’s groan is louder, but Foggy ignores it this time as well. “Claire says that thanks to whatever was in your system, you might have some issues with your memory. So if you remember anything that might help our case, that’s going to help Gina, then we need to talk about it sooner rather than later.”

Matt doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Claire… Claire views what he does through who he helps. She always has. She’s better than he is in that. (He spends a little too much time looking forward to making people hurt.) So he cedes the point.

“Where do you want to start?”

“Just…start with whatever you can remember about the initial assault.”

 

+

 

They talk until Matt struggles to put one word in front of another, rehashing the few details he can remember until new ones emerge. He would have gladly fallen asleep on the couch, but Foggy bullies him into making the short trip to the bedroom. He tries to get Foggy to agree to go home (he doesn’t need a babysitter, no matter what Claire says or thinks) but of course Foggy doesn’t listen (and Matt is truly too tired to fight).

He’s so tired that he starts stripping down before he hears the bedroom door slide closed. (Forgets that maybe he should wait for it to close.) So tired that he leaves the clothes on the floor where they lay. So tired that he doesn’t really know where the edge of the bed starts until he runs into it.

The day is too warm for blankets, really, but his skin is still shivery and sensitive. He cocoons himself in the sheet as best he can, feet kicking ineffectively at the heavier weight of the comforter. But finally (finally) he’s able to rest against his pillow, his head and part of his chest turned into it (arm draped over it) as he tries to shift his hips away from any pressure more demanding than the boxers he thought twice about ditching. And it’s…good. (No, not good, but enough.) (Good would be the heat of another body, of Claire’s silent acceptance.)

There’s enough of her left on his skin that if he ducks his head towards his chest he can catch traces of it underneath the chemicals seeping out of his pores.

It’s enough.

 

+

 

He dreams about her, kind of. About the warmth of her, the scent of her, the oddly compelling _stillness_ of her. But mostly about the pressure of her hand on his chest, holding him down. Holding him still. Holding him in place.

 _Shhh…_ that hand tells him through slow strokes of the thumb. _Shhh…_

 

+

 

“Matt.”

The touch on his shoulder is probably meant to be gentle. Reassuring, maybe. But it shocks him out of a deep sleep. He knocks the extended arm away and launches himself across the bed. Or tries to. He’s still firmly cocooned in his sheets, and really only manages to end up mostly upright against the wall as he tries to make sense of what’s happening.

“Holy shit, I’m so –”

_Karen. It’s Karen next to the bed, and_

“ – sorry. I tried calling you, but you didn’t –”

_Foggy’s footsteps jogging across the living room and coming towards him_

“ – wake up and Foggy said –”

_and his heart is still lurching behind his ribs like he’d taken a roundhouse kick to the chest._

“ – you needed to wake up and eat something, and I did _not_ mean –”

“It’s fine.” Matt tries to make himself heard, but between the dry mouth and the lump in his throat, he’s not terribly successful. Clearing his throat only makes a dull headache start throbbing behind his eyes. “Karen, it’s fine.” Honestly, he should probably be apologizing himself but there’s a corner of his mind that’s (furious) (enraged) (vengeful) angry, more angry than he’d realized, and so much focused attention and unwanted scrutiny is making it flare up.

(He wants to hurt someone.)

(But not his friends. Not them.)

So he grits his teeth and forces himself to relax. To stop looking like a…victim. (That’s what’s really behind Karen’s rambling.) (He’s scared her by confirming she should be scared.)

If his attackers hadn’t been more intent on making him so miserable that he’d drop the case, if they’d been more interested in making an example out of him, if _(Claire, please, Claire…)_ he hadn’t gotten somewhere safe _(Selfish, Murdock.)_ or if –

“Matt.” Foggy’s voice this time. Calm, level, normal… Breaking through what’s becoming a stew of resentment and humiliation. (God, how could he have gone to Claire like _that_?) “Need some water?”

He nods and tries to only focus on his breathing as Foggy pulls Karen from the room and partially closes the door behind them. Tries to slow…everything. His body is more responsive to his directions than it’s been in the last however many hours, lungs finally falling into the same pattern he uses for meditation and the rest of his systems following (reluctantly).

Foggy comes back alone (Karen is pacing somewhere, the impact of her heels sharp and severe against the floor), hands over a bottle of something with a little shake to help Matt locate it in space. “I uh…I asked Karen to bring a few things over,” he says (explains?) as Matt opens the bottle, breathes in the scent of coconut water. “A lot of what Claire sent home with you…well, I’m not going to try to argue about the nutritional content, but I figured…”

Figured Matt might want a treat, something he used to buy himself in the weeks leading up to finals.

“Thanks, Foggy.” He’s tempted to drain the bottle, but sips at it slowly instead. As it hits his stomach he realizes that he’s hungry for the first time in…since before. Since before going to the gym.

“How are you feeling?”

Like he wants to put all of this behind him and move on. Like he needs his life to not be about the last two days for just one goddamn…

He takes a deep breath and lets it out. Does it again, and again as he tries to steady himself.

“Matt?”

“I’m fine,” he grits out. “Just…”

“You know…” Foggy pauses. “Claire thought –”

“Will you let it go!” His tenuous grip on his emotions just…dissolves, like steam from a boiling pot. “It doesn’t _matter_ what Claire says or thinks because –” Because she’s gone. Again. Left him, again. Abandoned, again.

The door to the bedroom flies open; Karen’s rage nearly matches his own, rippling away from her to wash through the apartment. “See! I told you, Foggy. I told you there was something else –”

“Karen, I told you, there’s nothing else going on here. And you’re _really_ not helping. Just…give us a minute, okay?”

The tension in the room persists, unbroken by so much as a muscle twitch. It ratchets up Matt’s own sense of agitation until whatever standoff Karen and Foggy are holding breaks. Karen spins on her heel and stalks off; Foggy sighs and mutters something about how he never signed up to be the voice of reason, he could have been a butcher…

He slides the bedroom door closed again and turns back to Matt, his posture slumped and tired. “Thanks for that, by the way. Getting Karen back on the war path. You know what she’s like; she doesn’t take threats to the wellbeing of her friends well. She’s slipped into ‘circle the wagons’ mode in a hardcore kind of way. The only reason she didn’t come with me to get you this morning was I didn’t tell her I was going.”

That, the image of a righteously angry Karen and an exhausted Claire meeting…that makes Matt pause. Claire had felt…she’d felt guilty, he remembers that now. Guilty about the extent of her involvement in this…mess. Claire probably would have let Karen tear her to shreds.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, taking another sip from his bottle of water to cover his sudden uncertainty.

“Don’t mention it. Now, can I finish what I was going to say, or do you want to yell some more?” When Matt shakes his head, Foggy goes back to, “She thought the withdrawal would hit you hard. Wasn’t sure if that’s because you got a double dose of whatever shit it is they’re using, or something particular to your biochemistry. Says it doesn’t really matter, and that you should just hang in there because this isn’t going to last.”

“You’ve talked to her?” Matt doesn’t know how he feels about that.  (Jealous. Left out. Conspired against. Sad.)

“No. She wrote me like a ten page essay about what I might expect. The word withdrawal featured pretty prominently. And stubborn, as in, ‘too stubborn for his own good.’” Foggy fidgets with something on the floor. “You could always call her.”

No. He can’t. Not when he’s already involved her in this against her better judgment. (He remembers, vaguely, arguing against going to a hospital.) He’d forced her…

No, that’s not entirely correct either. He can still remember the sound of her heart. Slow. Steady. And he knows what her heart sounds like when she’s had too much, when she just wants to get away.

“I’m going to take that as a no. No wonder you wear a mask; your poker face sucks. You know, you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be –”

“She walked away from all this for a good reason, Foggy. You almost did the same thing.” And he just keeps pulling her in. After all he’s put her through he really needs to respect her choices.

“Fine. Whatever. Suffer in silence. I’m just your friend, what do I care? Lunch?”

The coconut water is sitting alright on his stomach, so Matt nods. If that’s what it’ll take to end this conversation, he’d eat glass. “What are we having?”

“Well, Claire says…”


	11. Chapter 11

Claire spends her day doing everything she hopes Matt is doing (but suspects he isn’t); eating, sleeping, and distracting herself with a marathon of rom-coms that all blend together after the first one. Balanced against that is the way she cleans the entire apartment from floor to ceiling, until she almost doesn’t recognize it. (She toys with the idea of rearranging her living room, but even with multiple naps and an abundance of nervous energy, she’s too tired for that.)

She tries not to worry about Matt, but…

(But she’s already invested nearly a year into worrying about him from a distance, so the last couple of days have only brought things back into an uncomfortable preoccupation rather than the occasional pang of concern when she picks up a newspaper.)

There’d been good, solid reasoning behind her decision to send him home. Her aching need to call and check up on him is nothing more than overwrought nerves and possibly the beginnings of a god-complex. It’s extremely arrogant to believe that not only is she the _only_ person qualified to take care of him, it’s also (stupid) (so very stupid) absurd to assume that there isn’t someone else out there…

Well, whatever had been between them had only ever been built of blood and moonbeams. She has no reason to believe that she has any hold over him other than fading could-have-beens. (Doesn’t matter what he’d said; he’d been drugged.) (Doesn’t matter what _she’d_ said; that had been a matter of getting them both through hell.)

Still, when her phone rings she leaps for it. (Tries to swallow her disappointment when her caller ID displays “Work.”)

“Hello?”

“Claire? Is that you?”

Claire clears her throat, though her voice stays a little rough. “Yeah. Shirley, what are you still doing at work?” Her boss should be… Actually, she’s lost almost all track of time, but it’s after sunset.

“It’s been that kind of day; it’s probably best you weren’t here for it. Listen, I need you to come in a few minutes before your shift tomorrow.”

Claire sighs, mostly because just thinking about working tomorrow is enough to exhaust her. (And yeah, she’d kind of forgotten the “favor” Matt had asked her for in all the excitement, but there’d always been a chance the undocumented bloodwork would get tagged somewhere along the line.)

“Yeah. I’ll, um…I’ll be there. Fifteen minutes going to be enough, or should I…?”

“No. That’ll be fine. Get some sleep. It sounds like you’re coming down with something.”

“Sure thing. ‘Night, Shirley.”

“Claire?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

No. Not at all. (If she’s anything, it’s suddenly very interested in the results of Matt’s tests. Or possibly paranoid.) “I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Good night, Claire.”

“Night.”

She ends the call and spends a few quiet minutes panicking about tomorrow. (Which is silly. Really. Because this could be about almost anything, including some kind of last ditch attempt to get her to take over inventory duties while Aleesha goes on maternity leave.) (Inventory is the worst.)

Almost out of habit (a day should not be long enough to form habits) she scrolls through her contact list. Stops at a number only listed as “M.” (She didn’t tell Foggy about the scale, didn’t tell him to use it to check in with Matt.) But dialing that number is almost a guaranteed war cry; he’d given her the number to save for life or death situations. (Or on the off-chance that she might develop a social life.) Calling it now would panic him for no good reason.

“Should have gotten Nelson’s number,” she grumbles to herself. But she’d been too tired to think to ask, and he hadn’t offered. (He probably assumed that she and Matt were less dysfunctional than they are.)

“You’re fine. _He’s_ fine.” Claire sets her phone down and tries to make herself believe it.

 

+

 

She doesn’t sleep much that night.

 

+

 

She’s out of bed before the sun is truly up and slips into running gear. As an intense but directionless teenager, she’d participated in a lot of school sports; she might not be up to any of her old cross-country records, but jogging still lets her escape herself.

Neighborhoods stir and start to come to life as she passes through, silent but for the soft thud of her feet and the rougher rasp of her breathing. ( _This_ is what physical exhaustion should feel like. Honest. Earned.)

When she gets home she takes a bottle of water and an orange out onto her fire escape and listens to her neighbors, to the parts of their morning routines that come floating out their open windows. The orange is juicy, slightly tart, and an absolute mess to eat.

(She is very carefully thinking about the moment she’s in.) (Has been since she caught herself listening for Matt in the dark of her bedroom.) (It doesn’t work well. The juice creeps into the mending split in her lip.) (Work will be a welcome distraction. A jolt back to normality.)

She showers mechanically, ignoring the smudged bruises on her hips (and thighs) (and knee). They’re fading, only really visible in the hot water sluicing over them.

What’s far more worrying are the bruises on her arms and the hickies scattered from her collarbone to just under her ear. There’s even a decent bite mark among them. (Claire foresees an ocean of paperwork in her future, at least once the good-natured ribbing of her peers subsides.) (They’ll all assume she spent the last couple of days getting laid, and she won’t correct them.) (Fortunately she’s never been one to gush about her personal life, so no one will be surprised when she refuses to give details.)

Still, she fusses with her hair, trying to at least hide the worst of the damage. (When she meets her own eyes in the mirror she sees equal parts resignation and annoyance.) (Maybe she should have jogged over to a Walgreens and shelled out for some concealer.) (It’ll have to wait for her lunch break now, unless she wants to be late for her meeting.) (Not that being late would any worse than showing up like this.)

“Damn it, Matt.” Which isn’t fair at all. (Not that she cares.)

When things are as good as they’re going to get, Claire grabs her bag and heads out, ready to just get the day started.

 

+

 

The locker room is blessedly empty when she gets to work. Things seem busy for a Saturday morning – more than the usual round of running injuries, handymen-falling-off-ladders, cut-palms-instead-of-cut-bagels. Part of her wants to dive right into it. But if Shirley is here on a weekend…

(This is probably not about inventory.)

Shirley’s office is empty, so Claire makes her way towards the admin wing. Her hands restlessly rearrange her hair over her shoulders. (Around her neck.)

Her boss is waiting for her just outside the main administrative offices. She looks like…she looks like she’s regretting giving up smoking last year. An impression that only grows when she looks up and sees Claire.

(Claire pauses briefly; there’s a manila folder tapping wildly against Shirley’s thigh.) (It’s nothing more than a hitch in her step, but it’s more than enough time for the two women’s eyes to meet.)

Shirley steps forward and pulls Claire to the side. (Her hand rests above the bruise that circles around Claire’s bicep.)

“Tell me this isn’t you.” She holds up the folder and twists it back and forth in emphasis.

Claire self-consciously sucks on her bottom lip and rearranges her hair yet again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Shirley curses quietly, then looks around. “Tell me that these test results that Paolo ran for you aren’t yours.”

Claire flinches first, breaking eye contact to stare at the floor tiles. It’s bad enough that she’s gotten her coworker in trouble, possibly. She’s not going to make matters worse by lying. (There are so many other possibilities to make this worse.) “They’re not mine.” (They would have been submitted via the usual channels if they had been.) (Because _she_ would have gone to the hospital.)

“But you know who they belong to.”

Clearly. She’s not exactly denying culpability. Still, she crosses her arms over her chest and shuffles her feet. And avoids answering the question. “What’s happened?” Because this is far more agitation than a bending of the rules deserves.

Shirley looks around again and pulls Claire a little further away from the entrance to the admin wing. “Whatever it is you’re involved with? It…it killed a young woman the other night. She was in cardiac arrest when the EMTs got her here and Goodman couldn’t pull her out of it. Her records showed a congenital heart defect, but when Paolo ran her panels he recognized something from the sample _you_ gave him.”

Claire swallows hard and rubs her forehead. _Shit. Shit, shit, shit._ There’s nothing she could have done to stop it, or even to change it, but she can’t help but feel…

“Ms. Benson, we’re ready to begin.”

Claire glances over; a man in a nice suit, with a nice tie, and an expensive watch stands in the doorway to admin. _Lawyer,_ her brain supplies. She glances back to Shirley quickly, wondering if she should have brought a lawyer of her own but her boss’s gaze is level. Serious, maybe, but not worried. (No, Shirley would have warned her if she were in serious trouble.)

“We’ll be right in, thank you.”

Claire waits for the door to close before she lets out a unsteady sigh. “Shirley…”

“Look, I’m not going to lie. You chose a really crappy time to circumvent hospital policy, and we’re going to have to deal with that. But right now we _all_ have to cooperate with the hospital’s – and yes, the city’s – investigation. All you have to do is tell everyone what you know.”

“Play nice and get off with a slap on the wrist?” she murmurs, more to herself than anything. Her day is going to hell in a hand basket.

“Like I said. You chose a crappy time to sneak tests in.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

This is not going to end well.

 

+

 

Matt isn’t sure how his apartment became some sort of common area. It shouldn’t be, considering the way he’d lost his temper in the attempt to make Foggy and Karen go home the night before. (In fact, this feels a lot like revenge.)

He sulks in his bedroom for awhile, trying to ignore…everything. (Claire hasn’t called.) (Foggy spent the night on the couch, mainly because he didn’t trust Matt not to go out in the suit.) (Karen is back, with coffee, and is moving around the kitchen like she’s making herself at home.) (Claire hadn’t even called Foggy to check on him behind his back.) (She’s dropped him like a hot potato.) (She –)

(She’s entitled to whatever she wants after what he put her through.)

He’s… (Pathetic.) (Clingy.) (Needy.) (Selfish.)

“Rise and shine, Murdock!” Foggy raps his knuckles against the door. “I can hear you tossing and turning in there. Get out here and drink your coffee in grouchy silence like a man.”

“Foggy…”

“No, Karen, trust me. This is for his own good. He’d get the same way after finals once he’d had time to second-guess all his answers. Except now he’s feeling bad about being a dick last night and would rather wallow in a coffee-less existence than admit we’re not holding grudges. Matt!”

“Fine!” And while he’s still kind of pissed, he has to admit that just about anything is better than sitting in here and…well, doing exactly what Foggy thought he was. So he pulls on the first clothes his hands land on and opens the door. He’s met by the scents of the aforementioned coffee, and…pancake batter? Raw bacon. The tangy/sweet scent of some kind of fruit salad.

He wants to ask how much of this is Claire-approved, but decides not to pick at that open wound. (Maybe if he were the only one bearing it, but for some reason her name makes Foggy sad and Karen angry.) (Okay, he’s not stupid. He knows why it makes Foggy sad.) (Karen’s reaction is a mystery though.)

“Don’t you guys have something better to do with your Saturday mornings besides invade my apartment?” Matt cautiously makes his way to the dining table. (He ignores the way Foggy paces him; physically, he’s actually feeling better.) (He can go out tonight.)

“Not really. Foggy thought we might get you into the office today, but I wasn’t sure that was such a great idea.” Karen circles around the kitchen counter and puts a bowl of fruit in front of him, along with a set of silverware that she lays out as if setting the table. “Besides, we can catch you up on the case here just as well.”

“What do you mean?” Matt picks up the coffee Foggy leaves by his bowl. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing that can’t wait until after breakfast,” Foggy says, like he’s giving Karen grief for even raising the topic. It’s enough to tie Matt’s stomach in knots.

“What happened while I was…out?” He should have thought about this before, the odds that these bastards would go after someone else after he got away from them. Hell, he hadn’t even thought to warn Karen and Foggy. That had been Claire.

“ _Nothing_ happened,” Karen rushes to reassure him. “It’s just that, somehow, Gina found two other women with the same story. They were each able to fill in some details the others didn’t have –”

“You took on new clients?” Of course they had. But look at what’d happened when they’d only had one. This feels a lot like deliberately painting targets on their backs.

“Well, there wasn’t much else we could do as long as we didn’t know where you were.” There’s a sharp, dangerous edge to Karen’s voice. “At least this way we were helping _someone._ ”

“Karen –”

“No. Stop trying to get me to drop this, Foggy. She wouldn’t even let us talk to him! He could have been dead for all we knew, and she –”

“Did what she thought I would want.” Matt pushes away from the table, stands up. (Like this is something he can fight physically.) “Anything Claire did, she did because she thought that’s what I would want. And she wasn’t wrong.”

“But she –”

“Ignored her professional instincts and possibly put her job at risk to help a friend? Knowingly made enemies out of the two of you to protect my privacy?” Matt wraps his hands around the back of his chair hard enough that his muscles protest, but his voice stays level. “I’m sorry you’re mad, but you’re mad at the wrong person.”

Everyone is silent for a long moment. (Beside him, Foggy is nervous, offering nothing to either side.) (He can hear Karen lick her lips and shuffle her feet.)

“Alright.” Karen still doesn’t sound happy, but she doesn’t sound as angry either. “Fine. You both should have known better. Is that what you want to hear?”

Not really, but it’s something. And considering who he’s arguing with, it’s more of a concession than he thought he’d get. “To be fair, Claire would probably agree with you on that. She was just in the unfortunate position of having to argue with me.”

“You’re a stubborn son of a bitch, that’s for sure.”

“Am I the only one not surprised by this information?” Foggy drops his hands on the table. His chair scrapes across the floor. “Now, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready for breakfast. And no offense, Karen, but you tend to get distracted and the window for getting those perfect crispy edges on pancakes is pretty small. So I’m going to take over and you two can continue this weird stare-down you’ve got going on. Yeah? Great.”

Matt sits back down and cradles his coffee between his hands. “You guys are the ones who invited yourselves over.”

“That’s because you’re a miserable hermit who doesn’t ask for help when he needs it.”

Great. “I’m…going to take a shower.”

 

+

 

Matt’s washing the breakfast dishes (no one else gets them as clean as he’d like) when Foggy’s phone rings. He doesn’t pay it too much attention – his friend’s sugary tone is too familiar. Or at least he doesn’t pay it too much attention until Foggy’s pulse stutters momentarily before picking up its pace. He raises his head and tries to focus on the distorted voice coming through the cell phone, but Foggy halts the conversation. Takes it out into the hallway where it’s harder to hear anything but his side of the conversation. Which he can _almost_ manage –

“Are you okay?” Karen breaks his concentration.

“What?”

“You’re holding your head like you’ve hurt your neck.”

“I’m fine.”

Karen comes up next to him, flaps a towel and starts drying the dishes he’s washed. “Matt –”

“It’s fine.” He’s not sure what Karen wants to talk about, but he’s certain he doesn’t want to get anywhere close to it. It’ll either make both of them angry or just make him very uncomfortable. He’s not interested in talking things over. Talking to Foggy yesterday had been bad enough, and that had just been a route repetition of facts.

Fortunately, Foggy comes back inside.

“Uhh… We need to go.”

“Go where? Who was on the phone?” Karen sets her towel down.

“That was Brett. He was calling to ask if we had any clients right now that might have hired a private nurse.”

Matt’s chest suddenly feels too tight. “Claire?” he asks softly. Foggy doesn’t answer directly, but Matt doesn’t really need the words. There’s only so many people who’d mention Foggy by name.

“Apparently there’s a nurse at Metro-General who is being…less than forthcoming, shall we say, about some information that the NYPD deems relevant to a current investigation.”

“Has she been…” Charged? _Arrested?_ Surely Claire isn’t _that_ dedicated…

“Calm down. No one’s done anything yet. She told them that we were her patient’s legal representatives – which is _technically_ true – but that she didn’t feel comfortable saying more without clearing it with us. Matt? What did you get her involved in? It’s not like the police would care if she were treating people off the books. Not really their gig unless it turns into manslaughter or reckless endangerment.”

He touches the spot on his arm where Claire had cut him open, then the crook of his elbow. “I… She wanted me to go to the hospital.”

“And you said no. We’ve heard this part of the story. What did you actually get her to do?”

“Did any of these new clients get to the hospital before the drug left their systems?”

“No.” Karen’s the one who answers. “We still don’t know what they’re using. What does that have to do with –”

“I asked her to take a blood sample. I wasn’t… I wasn’t thinking clearly, so I didn’t… When she agreed, I just let it go. I never wondered how she’d get the sample tested. But we both knew how important it was –”

“We?” Foggy interrupts. “You had time to tell her about the case?”

“She wouldn’t have taken the sample if she didn’t understand why it was important.” His reasoning is sounding weaker by the moment.

“You never asked how she would get the sample processed?” Karen sounds…incredulous. Maybe a little angry. With him this time.

He shakes his head. “I knew we needed the information, but…” This is all his fault. “I need to change.” He’s not going to be able to help her in jeans and a t-shirt.

“No. _No._ ” Foggy’s doing that angry (adamant) pointing thing that he seems to save for Matt. (Which is a weird thing to do to a blind man.) “ _You_ need to figure out what you’re going to tell the police, because allowing you anywhere _near_ Claire in a legal capacity would be a massive conflict of interest on your part and an act of negligence on mine. Even if some kind of documentation detailing your employment of Claire in a medical capacity _did_ exist – which I hope to God it doesn’t – it’d still have _your_ signature on it. So _I_ will go home and slip into something more professional and meet you at the hospital in…an hour?”

“An hour? Foggy, she’s being interrogated –”

“No one’s being interrogated. She’s given them enough information to stall them. Brett’s not too happy our name came into things, but he’ll probably just try to make her convince me to stop sending his mom cigars, seeing as how she’s a nurse. I’m serious, Matt. The time to white knight into this was when she wanted you to go to the hospital in the first place. Getting there before me isn’t going to help anyone.”

“Except Claire.”

“No, including Claire. Apparently the hospital board is involved in things. The best we can do is get her off the police’s radar which is the only reason you should be coming at all.”

“Foggy’s right.” Karen speaks up before Matt can resume arguing. “Look. Let’s finish the dishes and then you can come with me to my place. I live further away from the hospital, but I don’t need to shower, just a change of clothes.”

“Karen, you don’t have to –”

“Like hell. This is my job too. Whatever you and Foggy end up doing, you’ll both be too busy to take notes. And this is part of the case now. If we cooperate we might still get something out of this to help Gina and the others.”

“Good idea. Swing by the office on the way back. I typed up my notes from talking with Matt yesterday. We might get a little more if we offer something.” Foggy bustles around collecting his things. “Matt, you stick with Karen until we get to the hospital.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Normally I’d disagree, but in the interests of saving time I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear you. Karen –”

“Metro-General. One hour. We’ll be there.”

 

+

 

Shirley is being quiet. That’s probably a bad sign, but Claire is just so…tired. (Go home and rest your head in your mama’s lap kind of tired.) (Battered.) (Worn.)

(This is so much deeper than she’d ever imagined lettering herself get into things.)

(If only it hadn’t been _Matt._ )

(Oh, who the hell is she kidding? She would have done the same thing for any noble-but-damaged, trying-to-do-gooder who crossed her path. Which she knows empirically now. She would have gotten herself in almost as deeply for almost anyone. It just would have hurt her less.)

(She’s pretty sure that she would have made the other two go to the hospital though.)

(Not that she has any idea how she would have accomplished that. Her trio of secrets has her seriously outclassed in the brute force category. And Matt’s probably the only one who trusts her enough that she’d be able to get close enough to dose him against his express wishes.)

(How the hell did she let her life get like this?)

The inactivity is killing her. They don’t really _need_ her for the rest of this. One way or another her story will bear out. Or it won’t, and she’ll need to make some decisions about how many secrets she can live with. But here she waits. (And waits.)

At least there’s air conditioning. (At least Shirley had let her go back to her locker for a sweater before this had all started in earnest.)

She stands up, intending to say she needs to use the restroom or something (anything for the chance to _move_ ) when the doors to the admin wing open and –

(She’s never seen Nelson so put together.)

(She’s never seen Matt dressed so casually.)

– her chest seizes up a little, because she’s never seen Matt in this context. (That one, singular morning, when a blind man with his defenses lowered had managed to jar hers open.) (A single point of reference that doesn’t include him hanging on the arm of one of the prettiest, most delicate white girls Claire’s ever seen.)

( _Hanging_ is too strong a word, and the Karen on the phone the other morning had sounded about as delicate as a bone saw, and God knows she should know better than to judge a book by it’s cover –)

Matt’s doing that thing were he scopes out a room in case he has to incapacitate everyone in it, and it’s only been a couple seconds since they came in the door but she chokes a little as she tries to take a deep breath (tries to convince her heart that she and it are too tired for this shit) and the awkward sound pulls his attention like she’s drawn a gun. He slips free from the blonde and lengthens his stride to catch up with Nelson, catching his friend’s arm easily. (Nelson’s body language says Matt’s presence at his side is familiar; the expression on his face – there and gone again – reads as exasperation.) (The kind saved for best friends and blood relatives.)

And Claire… She doesn’t know what to do. So when Shirley stands up and moves to flank her, she crosses her arms and takes a step back. An important step back, one that indicates Shirley will be taking the lead, that lets her turn herself into a silent third party. (She notices the look Shirley gives her, but she just shakes her head, a sharp back and forth that’s meant to divorce herself even further from the proceedings.)

Or at least that’s the idea. Matt might get a bye in the body language department, but Nelson… He’s clearly almost as stubborn as his friend. He shakes Matt off and stops in front of Shirley with an outstretched hand. “Hello, I’m Franklin Nelson. I know that Officer Mahoney was the one to actually get in touch with our firm, and Ms. Temple isn’t technically a client, but do you mind if I steal her for a moment?”

Shirley takes the offered hand but looks at Claire.

“Shirley, Foggy. Foggy, Shirley Benson, my boss.”

“Foggy?”

“Childhood nicknames. What can you do?” He smiles and shrugs; he’s surprisingly charming in a self-deprecating kind of way. It’s something Claire wouldn’t have guessed at. “Claire, a moment?”

A moment. Right. A moment is what she takes to glance from face to face (Foggy, Shirley, Matt, Karen (?), back to Shirley). But she nods and walks a few feet down the hall, stopping with her back to everyone (Matt) (not that it matters). Foggy has to circle around her to see her face. He doesn’t say anything though, just tucks his hands in his pockets and starts to…examine his shoes? Rate the carpet? Wait her out?

She’s done with waiting. “This is almost private,” she says. Her voice is low enough not to carry. Well, low enough for it not to carry to _most_ people.

“Yeah well, I’m not trying to keep secrets.” He glances at her with a wry smile. “First things first; you’re an idiot.”

 

+

 

It’s not eavesdropping if they know you can hear them. Or at least that’s what Matt tells himself as he settles against the wall. And Claire seems resigned to the fact that privacy is in short supply right now, which he hates, because he hates Claire being resigned to _anything_. (Claire doesn’t take anything lying down.) (Foggy seems too delighted in being able to dress them down at the same time.)

“I have to admit…” Karen saunters over and leans against the wall next to him. It takes him a moment to shift his focus; she keeps her voice soft, possibly in light of the nearly deserted offices around them. He misses some of what she says, but Foggy hasn’t gotten around to asking Claire the questions they’d agreed on, so…

“What’s that?”

“Oh, I was just expecting something different. More glamorous, for some reason.”

That doesn’t make sense. “The offices?” He agrees that they aren’t high end, but –

“No. Her. Claire.”

Glamorous. Yeah, that’s not a word he’d use to describe Claire either. “What were you expecting?” He knows what his own impressions of Claire are, especially right now. His sense of her is…spiky. Unpredictable. Flaring and dimming in ways he’s never associated with her. And Foggy has his own biases.

“Oh, I don’t know. A cross between a 1920’s _femme fatale_ and a super villain.”

Matt’s visual frame of reference is decades out of date and not particularly extensive, but… “Aren’t you describing Natasha from _Rocky and Bullwinkle_?”

Karen’s silent for a moment but then she starts laughing, her voice still quiet but clearly delighted. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

“The lack of a Russian accent must have been deeply disappointing.”

“A little.” She sighs and shifts against the wall next to him. “She just looks…tired. Fantastic cheekbones though.”

“Mmm…” Matt doesn’t know what to do with that; Karen sounds like she’s on a fishing expedition. “We’re all tired.” He drops his head back against the wall and focuses back on Foggy and Claire.

 

+

 

“Excuse me?” Claire is hoping she misheard.

“Don’t get me wrong. Your heart’s clearly in the right place, and I’m glad for his sake that it is. But you should have called 911 and had his ass dragged to the nearest hospital. Which would be this one.”

God, that almost makes her laugh. (And the sly bastard’s watching for it.) “I guess hindsight’s twenty-twenty.” But being with Matt, it’s always been like existing in another reality almost. Their own little world. Not to mention… “What was I supposed to do when he objected? And by _objected_ I mean gone all street-fighter on the EMTs? Or leapt out a window while under the influence of mind altering substances?”

“Okay. That’s…that’s not actually a bad point, and I maybe didn’t consider all the ramifications of plan A. I’ll come back to this argument. Next up, do you actually need legal representation? It can’t be one of us for obvious reasons, but I can recommend –”

Claire interrupts with a quick shake of her head. “My union rep is on his way. That’s one of the reasons we took a break.”

“Well, I’m glad your dues are being put to good use. Is he a _good_ union rep?”

“I certainly hope so.” She gives him a bit of an odd look. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to get you to relax before you gouge holes in your sweater, which will bring Underdog over there running.”

She glances down at her arms; her fingernails are making deep indentations in the sleeves of her cardigan. “Never fear,” Claire murmurs, mostly to herself. But she drops her arms and shakes out her hands.

“Something like that.” Foggy catches her eye again. “He was ready to leap tall buildings in a single bound to get here.”

“He’s edgy.” That much must still be true. She knows Matt; he internalizes. Spends too much time in his head. That was the whole point of sending him home with someone who knew him.

“That is absolutely true, and has nothing to do with why he wanted to get here.” Foggy’s look turns meaningful, like she’s being deliberately obtuse.

Of course Matt came to help her. Of course she knows that. She just doesn’t know what to do with it. But she nods. That’s probably a safe enough response.

“Okay, then bear with me while I make things uncomfortably awkward for a moment.”

That does make her laugh. “Do your worst.”

“I’m supposed to ask you to check in.”

 _Oh._ She has to clear her throat a few times before she can answer. “I’m fine.”

Foggy glances over her shoulder, clearly checking in with Matt himself. “No good.”

Claire sighs and looks at the ceiling. His scale, the pain scale they set up, won’t work for her. The pain she’s in… This is just her body’s reaction to stress; she knows how anxiety sits in her body.

And for that matter, Matt probably does too.

“If one is…” She rolls her head on her neck and tries to decide what to use as an example, what’s the most relaxed she’s ever been around him. And yeah, this probably is going to get awkward.

“If one is flirting over stitches and ten is…if ten is that night in…in the garage before he…” Who is she kidding. Matt’s probably hanging on every word. “Before _you_ made it known you were there…then.” She has to clear her throat again. “By now it’s a four. Happy?’

Foggy checks over her shoulder again (and this is the most ridiculous method of conversing ever). But he wobbles a hand back and forth in a so-so gesture. Not that it helps; she doesn’t know if that’s the answer or a refusal to answer. Typical.

“Okay. One last question. Why so tight-lipped? It’s not like the cops are going to care if you lent a hand to your judgment-impaired friend.”

Oh yeah, this is definitely not a conversation she wants to have, whether it’s with Foggy or with Matt-via-Foggy. “I thought you liked that my heart was in the right place.”

“There’s standing up for your friends and then there’s digging yourself deeper into a hole you’re already standing in.”

He’s probably got a point. She shrugs and looks around, not that there’s much to see. “It’s been a long couple of days.”

“God, you’re _just_ like him, aren’t you? I mean, the flirting over grievous bodily harm is kind of a dead giveaway, but…I always thought you were just an innocent bystander that’d gotten swept up in all this somehow.”

“Mmm…” Probably better that Foggy doesn’t have all the answers he wants. “Speaking of the mess we’re currently in, the two of you should talk to Shirley before you go. I think I convinced her to hand a copy of the tests over to you guys.”

“See? This is exactly what I mean. Don’t you have enough on your plate right now?”

Well, the damage is already done. Someone might as well get something out of it, but Foggy seems like the kind of guy who’d get upset over hearing that. So she dissembles. “You mean like whether or not I need to watch myself around blondie back there?”

“Who? Karen? If I hadn’t spent the last day talking her around, I’d make fun of your threat assessment skills.”

Claire almost laughs (this entire situation is just so absurd) but she’s glad Matt’s got someone like that in his corner. “And she doesn’t know about…?”

“Oh, God no.”

Figures. “Well, I don’t know any of you very well, but that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”

“Right? I keep telling Matt that. And we should keep finding things to agree on because I think it’s making him squirm.”

A door opens behind them and she glances back. “As fun as that sounds, it looks like they’re ready to talk to you.” The police officer who’d somehow known Matt, or perhaps had known Foggy, is greeting Matt and Karen. He – Officer Mahoney – has the same kind of perseverance-in-the-face-of-exhaustion vibe that she’s used to seeing in her coworkers and the EMTs who drop her patients off. He’s polite though. Clearly interested in the bigger picture of justice, enough that he was willing to work around her earlier misgivings. “He’s not your biggest fan.”

Foggy grins, like she’s misstated something, or understated something, or maybe he just likes her seeming perceptive. “So why is he helping?”

She nods, he shrugs. “You know the story: damsel in distress, mysterious do-gooder who rides off into the sunset, good vs. evil…or at least the opportunity to lecture us about getting involved in something so messy. More or less the same thing.”

“Obviously.”

He grins again and pats her shoulder. “Take care of yourself. I know it was only implied last time, so maybe saying it will help. Let Matt clean up his own messes.”

She shrugs, unable to commit herself. (She has a habit of making terrible snap decisions.) (Knowing that, it’s better not to set herself up for a possible lie.)

“ _Exactly_ alike,” Foggy laments as he walks away.

Claire catches Shirley’s eye and points towards the nearest restrooms. She’s got hours of meetings in front of her; might as well seize the opportunity and avoid running into Matt at the same time. (Not that she’s deliberately avoiding him. She just doesn’t know…) (Her body is demanding hugs.) (Her brain reminds her that not only has he not called in the last day, he hasn’t called for _months._ )

By the time she returns from the bathroom, the firm of Nelson and Murdock is being interviewed by the police and her union rep has shown up.

Looks like it’s time to go face the music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. We're probably looking at just one more chapter after this. The central premise of the fic has been fulfilled. However, there's a delightful amount of aftermath to deal with still, so there's currently plans for a sequel. I've even got the first couple of chapters roughly outlined. And I _never_ outline anything.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. I lied. THIS is the second to last chapter. Both Claire and Matt have too many issues to cram into a 15 page chapter. Next chapter will end this story, and then we can think about Part 2.

“I feel like a little kid again,” Karen murmurs.

“How’s that?” Foggy asks.

The three of them are sitting on a bench in the waiting area; Claire’s disciplinary hearing is dragging on. Matt’s been half-distracted listening in on it since it started.

“You know, this is like waiting for the principal to come out of the office.”

It’d made him appear more out of it than he actually is, but that’d probably only helped make his case during questioning. (There’d been more than one question he hadn’t been able to answer, at least not to the department’s satisfaction.) (He knows they’re going to question Claire again, and he feels uncomfortably responsible for making her day drag on and on.) The detectives hadn’t been happy to hear the extent of their firm’s involvement in what’s become a murder investigation (or manslaughter at the very least). But since Matt, Foggy, and Karen hadn’t been pleased by the police’s _lack_ of involvement until this point –

“Oh yeah, you’re right. How ‘bout you, Murdock? Did you ever overcome your teacher’s pet tendencies and end up in the principal’s office?”

“Not the principal, but I got taken to Sister Anastacia’s office a few times for reading after light’s out.”

That makes his friends laugh and start sharing their own stories, which he listens to with half an ear. Claire hasn’t said a single word in her own defense, though it seems like everyone else in the conference room hasn’t shared her reticence. Even her union rep hasn’t done much except make route objections when the criticism turns more personal. (Not that Claire’s given him much to work with. She’d admitted to all wrong doing right off the bat.) (This really seems to be more about her possibly damaging the hospital’s reputation, though all punitive actions are ascribed to her procedural transgressions.)

(She hadn’t asked for help. Not from him, and not from Foggy.)

Her silence makes him frustrated. This is not the Claire he remembers, the one who’d stood up for herself and everyone around her despite her own fears. What’s worse, her silence makes him feel guilty, a greasy, heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

(When she finally comes out he won’t let her avoid him this time. He needs to stand in front of her. Needs to feel the blood under the skin of her wrist, catch the scent of her hair, the sound of the sigh she’s likely to give him.) (Needs to know if she’s avoiding him for his sake or hers.)

He makes haphazard conversation with his friends for another ten minutes or so before he hears the sound of chairs moving. A door opens down the corridor, releasing a chorus of creaky bones and heavy foot-falls. He waits for Foggy to stand up before he does the same, both hands gripping his cane nervously.

“Steady.” Foggy’s warning is almost lost under the group exiting the offices, but it’s enough to keep him from immediately going to Claire. (He’s already put her in a difficult position; she doesn’t need him following after her like a puppy.)

(For a split second he remembers what it was like to have her fingers running through his hair.)

(If he thought there was a chance in hell of getting a repeat of that experience, he’d follow her anywhere.)

Someone else comes out of the room. The boss. Benson. Ms. Benson.

“Sorry for the wait,” she says as she stops in front of them. Her tone is brisk, irritated. “That was…”

“No need to censor yourself. The members of the suit brigade are probably halfway to their country clubs by now,” Karen says dryly.

“Well, the bullshit does pile up, doesn’t it? Anyway. The files you’d have an interest in are in my office. It’s a bit of a walk –”

Matt ignores the rest, including Foggy’s heavy sigh and Karen’s sound of confusion as he brushes past all of them. He barely remembers to use his cane as he walks down the hallway. Claire’s presence is almost tangible, a beckoning lure, just out of reach. He just needs a moment in front of her, it doesn’t even have to be in private, just –

“Whoa, there, Murdock.”

Maybe if he’d been a little less single-minded maybe Brett wouldn’t have caught him by surprise. But he jerks away from the touch on his arm a little too violently, sidesteps a little too far, bumps into the wall –

“Hey. Easy.”

“I’m fine.” But his hands are raised between them and it takes him a few seconds to lower them.

(He has everyone’s attention – Foggy is holding Karen back, Brett’s partner moves towards the open door of the room they’re using to conduct their questioning in to get a better view of what’s happening, and Claire –)

Claire stands less than five feet away, her heart jolting unevenly, like their fight or flight impulses have been linked together. “Matt?” There’s concern in her tone, a question she doesn’t quite ask but he hears anyway.

_Check in with me._

He takes a step towards her, or at least tries to, but Brett rests a gentle – though still restraining – hand on his arm. “Com’on, don’t make me be the bad guy here,” he says, as if he’s trying to give Matt advice. “You know I can’t let you talk to each other until we complete our interview with Ms. Temple.”

There’s an implication there, that Matt’s going to coach her, or try to influence her; that he wants to somehow make sure their stories match. It’s a cop kind of implication, and he gets that. What pisses him off about it is the way it calls _her_ integrity into question. It just adds to everything that’s been building up inside him since he left her apartment. And it’s…it’s suddenly one thing too many.

It’s not a conscious decision, the way he shifts his weight to the balls of his feet. The simple motion takes him from merely being physically near to Brett to intruding on his personal space. It’s such a tiny action but it has huge consequences. Everything – everything about everyone – starts blazing, like the situation’s about to go up like a gasoline fire. (And god, but he kind of wants it to.) (But not in front of Claire. Not here.) (She’s comfortable with violence in pursuit of a just cause; he’s done enough to drive her away without revealing just how indiscriminate in the use of force he can be.)

For Claire’s sake – and only for her sake – he pauses, grips his cane and clinches his teeth and tries, desperately, to regain some perspective.

 

+

 

He stops himself. Barely, if Claire’s any judge. His fingers are white-knuckled around his cane; she’s close enough to hear the faint sound of his skin sticking/sliding against the vinyl grip. His face is turned in her direction as if waiting for some word or action from her that will trip the wire on his precarious self-control. He’s seconds away from disregarding a _very strong_ suggestion from a police officer that he appears to be on good terms with normally. And for what?

She knows for what. (For who.) (It’s her.) What she doesn’t understand is the strength of his reactions. She could drive him to real violence right now if she wanted to. (If she were another person she might consider it, might consider that kind of power over another person intoxicating.) (She should be apprehensive right now, not aching to make this all better.)

But she is aching, so she does what she always does. (Reaches to staunch the pain.) Keeping one eye on Officer Mahoney, she takes the step that lets her meet Matt halfway. Gets close enough that she can reach out and rest one hand on his forearm.

_I’m here. I’m right here._

He’s practically vibrating, but the tic in his jaw slows down. As if mimicking her he slowly and carefully moves his arm from under her touch until he can take her hand in his. (There’s nothing delicate about the strength of his grasp. Strength she returns in equal measure.)

And there’s something going on still, something about Mahoney having drawn a line in the sand and Matt having stepped up to it, but Claire ignores it as best she can. (She’s the fuse, the pull-line, the flint and steel.) Matt takes a step back and lowers his – their – hands, bringing her closer until their shoulders brush, until he can turn his head and press a kiss against her temple.

(She closes her eyes and lets it be and very, _very_ pointedly does not look around.) (Especially not at his friends.) (She doesn’t know what _she_ thinks about this; she doesn’t need to be worrying about what they might be.) (Well, she’s thinking that she’s not a fan of this particular kiss because it feels a lot like Matt marking his territory or proving a point.) (But she gets it even if she doesn’t like it.)

“I’m fine,” she mumbles, just for him.

His lips don’t leave her skin; his nose is pressed against her hair and she can feel the way he breathes deeply. A measured, trying-to-regain-control kind of breath. “Are we using my definition or yours?”

Smart, smart man. “Yours.”

He sighs and she steps back. Squeezes his hand again as tightly as she can manage. She’s been avoiding him, but since he’s forced the issue she might as well take advantage and give him a look-over like she’s been dying to. Other than the tension clearly riding him, he looks better. Like he might have given in and taken at least one nap since she last saw him. Probably more. The human body has limits, even his.

“Ms. Temple, if you’re ready.” It’s the other officer that interrupts.

Limits they both reach as she takes another step back, and one more after that, until their arms are outstretched. Fingers linked but tenuously so. _No, you hang up first_ , she thinks.

“Yeah. I’m ready.” She’s not, not really, but she turns. Pulls her fingers free with only a small lurch of melancholy. They’re both still standing, that’s all that truly matters. The rest of this is just…complication.

“Claire.”

She hates that he sounds lost, like her name is something that normally helps him find his balance and is failing to now. (There is nothing she can say without revealing too much to everyone.) (Especially to him.) But she still has – they both still have – shit to deal with. So she rolls her shoulders, as if the need she hears is – could ever be – easily dislodged, and goes into the room without responding.

 

+

 

Matt stands still as the door closes behind Claire. As he listens to chairs being pulled out and bodies being settled. As Brett’s partner starts easing in to whatever line of questioning they must have been following before she clammed up. He’s more interested in their tone than the questions themselves; but the questions are asked if not respectfully, then at least civilly. And Claire responds; she sounds tired but thoughtful. Cautious, maybe. If nothing else she’ll corroborate what he told them.

He wants to be sitting next to her while she answers. Not as legal counsel or to make her mind the honesty she’ll undoubtedly respond with, but because they went through it all together. They’d gone through it together, and he’d had Foggy and Karen with him while he endured his own round of questioning, and she has no one.

“Okay, that’s enough of that.” Foggy comes up behind him and nudges him towards the doors out.

“Enough of what?” Matt lets himself be herded, however reluctantly.

“Yeah, let’s save that discussion for another time. Maybe for when you’re not practically daring the police to arrest you and getting your girl to save your ass.”

“That’s not what’d happened.” (That’s exactly what’d happened.) (Except with less deliberation.)

“Really? _Really?_ That’s how you’re going to play it? You know what? Never mind. The ladies are waiting for us. Let’s go see if your Claire managed to dig up anything that’s worth this mess.”

“She’s not my Claire.” He ignores the pain in his chest that accompanies the denial.

“Whatever you say, buddy.”

 

+

 

Ms. Benson’s office is not located in the administration wing; it’s closer to the ER and ICU. (Matt wonders if that’s a deliberate choice or a sign of disfavor.) It’s also small, cramped, and smells like she takes most of her meals at her desk.

Foggy manages to maneuver things so that he’s the one left standing while Karen and Matt end up in the seats in front of the desk. It only makes Matt feel more trapped. He doesn’t want to be here. But he’s the one who asked Claire for a favor, and Claire had made a decision. She’d decided to help him. And if he takes a few seconds to stop thinking about himself, then he can see that Claire didn’t decide to help _just_ him. Claire had surmised enough about the other victims, about the potential victims, to make her want to help them despite the trouble she could get into. Because that’s how Claire thinks. (She is selfless in pursuit of what is right, and safe, and just.)

Claire doesn’t need him. (He thinks about the strength of her hand gripping his and thinks maybe he’s wrong.) (Thinks maybe he’s not right in the way he wants to be either.) What Claire needs, right now, is for him to hold up his part of the deal and put an end to all this.

So he settles into his seat and tries to sound confident. “What can you tell us about the drug, Ms. Benson?”

 

+

 

Turns out there’s quite a bit of information to be had, although Ms. Benson really just gives them a general picture of things. She moves through the technical jargon quickly, suggesting that though she has a degree in hospital administration, she gained other degrees before that.

“Essentially we’re looking at some kind of amphetamine. The side effects are what killed that girl the other night. It artificially raised her heart rate beyond…” She trails off. “Anyway. That’s what we have so far. Our results have been turned over to the NYPD – hopefully their people can get a better lead on how the drug is being produced.”

“Thank you for speaking with us, Ms. Benson.” Matt can hear Foggy tucking away their copy of the report in his shoulder bag. It’s like the sound of the closing bell. (He is suddenly tired, more than ready to retreat somewhere quiet. And away form his friends.) (He needs to meditate, try to find some equilibrium.)

It’s not running away, he tells himself as he stands up. Claire would call it self-preservation.

(He really, really needs to stop considering his actions from Claire’s point of view.) (He’s been doing it for months, telling himself that for months.)

“We won’t take up any more of your time.” He shifts the chair to the side so that he can step back. (There are too many bodies in too small a space; there’s no room to maneuver.)

“Actually, Mr. Murdock…I’d appreciate a moment of _your_ time.”

Matt can feel Karen and Foggy hesitate – makes sense, because he freezes for a split second too. But he reaches out for the chair he just vacated and sits back down.

“Mr. Nelson, Ms. Page, if you would close the door behind you?”

“Oh. Sure. A private talk. That makes way more sense considering you were talking to Matt. Karen? Can we go before I ramble my way into something I can’t talk my way out of?”

“Yeah. Uh, Matt, we’ll be just outside.”

His friends sound more curious than wary. Claire’s boss must not look too upset; his ears tell him a different story though. But the door to the office closes and he’s committed.

“Mr. Murdock –”

He smiles, not too much, just enough to be interpreted as charming. “Considering the direction this conversation is likely to take, maybe you should call me Matt.”

She’s silent for a few seconds which is more than enough time to let his attempt at charm die a prolonged and awkward death. “Mr. Murdock, there’s no easy way to say this. I’m concerned about your relationship with Claire.”

_Oh._

He’d been expecting something personal, most likely about his involvement in Claire’s wrong-doing. (Had been prepared to shoulder his share of the blame.) Maybe questions about how two lawyers managed to get their hands on a blood sample. This sounds a lot more personal than he’d bargained for.

Not to mention that he can’t, in good conscience, disagree with that assessment.

(It’s his turn to be silent instead of mounting a defense.)

Ms. Benson sighs heavily. “Claire’s a big girl. Good nurse. Compassionate, pragmatic, good eye for detail, responsible, dependable…or usually dependable. But this is the second time in the last year that she’s come to work looking battered and having to confess to having made some bad decisions.”

 _Battered._ That description – that _word_ – hits him a lot harder than…

“And then you and your partner show up and she’s alternating between avoiding you and keeping you from getting into a physical confrontation with a police officer in front of multiple witnesses. I’m sure you can understand my concern.”

“You think I…” Matt struggles to swallow around the hard knot of emotion in his throat. (Tries to sound a little less like his breath has been stolen.) “Why are we having this conversation if you think I’m abusing her?”

“Because I don’t necessarily think that’s what’s happening…but like I said, Claire’s a compassionate person. It’d be easy for her to get pulled into something that’s over her head, out of the best intentions. And the two of you clearly have some kind of…history. So. I just want you to be aware that if I ever see that bruised look in her eyes again, you’re the first person I’m coming for, whether you’re personally responsible for it or not.”

Shovel talk. He’s getting the shovel talk. And it does absolutely nothing to help absolve his sense of guilt or responsibility, but… (Someone else is looking out for Claire.)

“You look relieved.”

He shouldn’t. But if something he does ever circles back to Claire (again)…Foggy won’t hold him accountable for it. Not beyond a general disapproval of everything Matt does after dark. This though… Yeah, he relaxes a little. Leans back in the chair and sighs. “You’re right. Claire can be too compassionate.”

She’s silent but for a finger tapping against the desk. Slow and sharp and steady. He knows what it feels like when people are judging him. (Though, usually it’s because they think his blindness makes him unfit for something.) He can feel the weight of her regard and endures it calmly until she comes to some sort of decision. She sighs and her fingers still.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Murdock.”

 

+

 

Claire is emotionally drained by the time the police are done with her. Living through the event had been bad enough. Having to reconsider her actions and Matt’s actions, to recount (and justify) her decisions, to quantify her observations… It’s cold-blooded. Clinical. The exact opposite of what she’s feeling, until she’s too tired to feel much of anything.

“Is there anything else you’d like to add, Ms. Temple? Any details that might not have seemed important at the time?”

It should be an easy question, considering they’ve taken her through everything upwards of three times, but she has to think about it. They have a copy of the report from Matt’s blood tests. They’ve discussed the progression of symptoms as his body broke down the drug. She knows nothing about the assailants, or where the attack had taken place –

“I dug part of a needle out of Matt’s arm.” And had been angry and frustrated while she did it. “Matt said that…said that he’d struggled. I found the tip of a hypodermic needle.”

“Do you still have it?” Officer Mahoney looks serious, but eager.

What had she done with it? She’d been tired and shocked and close to forcing Matt into going to the hospital despite his protests. (Except that someone else had already forced him into a situation of their choosing.)

“Ms. Temple?”

“I don’t know. I clean when I’m…” _Upset. Distraught._ If she’d thrown it into the trash, it’s long gone. But she doesn’t think she would have thrown it away. She tries to remember, but she’d been focused on getting the blood draw done correctly. “It might be in my kit.”

“Okay.” Mahoney hands over a business card. “If you find it, give me a call and someone will come pick it up.”

She nods and folds her hand around the card. “Absolutely.”

“Thank you for your diligence, Ms. Temple.” (She notices he doesn’t say cooperation.) “We’ll be in touch if we have any other questions. Or if you find that needle.”

“Of course. Glad I could help.” Claire tucks the business card into her pocket as she stands. Then she leaves. Closes the door behind her and…stalls out. She should…she should go clear out her locker and check in with Shirley before…

Shit.

A glance at her watch tells her that she’s almost halfway through her shift. Or what would have been her shift if the day hadn’t gone to hell.

(She’d wanted to go see her mom; looks like she’s going to have the time on her hands.) (What is she going to do?)

No matter what, standing around in a bunch of empty offices isn’t going to help.

She takes a deep breath, gets herself (somewhat) under control, and leaves the administrative offices behind. Only to walk right into Matt.

Well, not _right_ into him, but he’s sitting on a bench in the lobby. Alone. Head bowed, elbows braced on his knees, and tapping the end of his cane against the floor. His head tilts in her direction when she hesitates and tries to decide if she’s up for this. (She’s not. But Matt is clearly determined.) (If she avoids him now, he’ll probably show up on her doorstep. Or fire escape.) (Because he’s ridiculous.)

So she cautiously walks over. Stops close enough that their toes are almost touching and waits. _Tap. Tap. Tap._ Combs her hair over her shoulder and wraps her arms around herself. _Tap. Tap, tap._ Waits some more.

He doesn’t seem to know what to say, which makes two of them. The silence is awkward, in the same way it had been the last time; she doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like the sense of strain between them, as if something’s on the point of breaking.

_Tap, tap, tap._

Besides, it’s not hard to guess what he’s thinking.

“Been waiting long?” He’s clearly waiting for her, and she’s too tired to dance around the issue. She’d feel bad for being blunt, but his lips slide into that distracted, lopsided smile he does so well.

“No.” _Tap, tap, tap._

That may or may not be true, since she doesn’t think he’d tell her if he had. Either way, he’s waiting alone. “Are your friends still talking to Shirley, or do I need to be watching my back?” That seems to confuse him, so she clarifies, “Your Karen looked ready to defend your honor. And me without my brass knuckles.”

Well, apparently she’s ready to be blunt about some things but not about others. And maybe Matt can hear her nervousness, maybe that’s why a faint blush colors his cheekbones and his cane taps a little faster. (Maybe she’s hit too close to home and she’s about to have another reason to be glad she didn’t sleep with him –)

“Foggy and Karen went back to the office. Today didn’t give us a lot more to go on, but it helped. And, uh…she’s not. I mean, she’s not _my_ Karen.” He clears his throat. “And, as a friend who’s familiar with the State of New York’s penal codes, I feel like I should advise you that brass knuckles are technically illegal.”

 _As a friend._ Well, she supposes that answers that question. Even if Karen isn’t his. But she nods and takes a slight step backwards, respecting the space boundaries of “friend” instead of “intimate.” (He’ll be here to assuage his conscience then. Because Matt Murdock tries to be a good man and takes on too much guilt.)

There’s that awkward silence again. (The sooner she absolves him, the sooner they can put this behind them.)

“So. How much did you overhear?” She doesn’t mean the conversation with Foggy, since he’d been an active participant. The conference rooms share a wall though; it’s not hard to guess that he’d eavesdropped on as much of her disciplinary hearing as he could.

“Enough,” he finally responds, a tense word underlined with a quick _taptaptap_ of his cane. “Why didn’t you tell me no, that night? Everyone says you should have. Why risk so much when…” His mouth goes tight, like he doesn’t trust himself to say anything else.

Claire sighs. Stares down at her shoes and hooks one hand behind her neck while leaving the other crossed over her chest. It’s a good question, one she’s asked herself over and over, but still doesn’t know how answer. (Well, she does, but he won’t like half of it and might think the other half is silly.)

“I’m sorry. You’re exhausted. I should –”

And there’s Matt’s guilt train, right on schedule.

“Two things.” That shuts him up. “I had two reasons.”

“One of them wasn’t really a fear I’d attack the paramedics, was it?”

So he’d heard that part too. “Not really. I figure you were…I mean, I think I could have talked you down enough to let them do their jobs.” He’d been suggestible. Eager to please. And his face goes tight at her reference to his forced drugging. “Which is actually why I didn’t force the issue.” (Attack. It’d been an attack.)

“What was the other reason?”

Can’t he tell she doesn’t really want to discuss this? She sighs and rubs at her forehead, but eventually answers, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” _Or the one._ (He doesn’t watch a lot of TV, so maybe the quote goes right over his head and they won’t need to discuss her Sci-Fi preferences.) “That’s part of the reason you do what you do. Even if you never would have thought to put it into those words.” Or any words at all.

He’s the type of guy whose actions speak louder though, and in her mind’s eye she can still see his little smirk that night on the roof when she’d talked about hearing stories about him from the people he’d helped. (Maybe not a smirk, but as if he were savoring the memories.) Because he’s still got a martyr’s heart and that still scares her half to death, but she’d helped him (again) and is now looking at two weeks’ unpaid suspension and has been busted down a pay grade and it is _worth it_ if it means putting an end to the violent exploitation of her neighbors. (If there is any Sunday School story she’d taken maybe too much to heart, it’s the story of the good Samaritan, and how sometimes helping others means personally paying a cost to do so.)

Matt makes an unhappy sound (an I-disagree-but-can’t-figure-out-how-to-argue kind of sound). And when he stands up she pivots out of the way, figuring he needs room to move. Because he’s that kind of person. But instead of pacing or trying to convince her she’s wrong, or needlessly selfless, or getting herself into trouble for nothing, he reaches out. Lets his fingers lightly settle on her shoulder, like an invitation. And she is _so_ tired (and lonely) (and unhappy) that she tests the waters. Leans forward a little, even though she keeps her arms crossed in front of her. And Matt draws her in, tucking her against his side where she can lean against him and close her eyes and take few seconds to pretend that this is not just another passing moment 

“Are you as tired as I am?” she mumbles.

He nods against her head, stubble catching at the strands of her hair. “Yeah.”

“It’s been a really long day.”

“I know.” He wraps his arm around her a little more snugly. “Claire?”

“Yeah?”

“I would…I’d really like it if you’d let me walk you home.”

“Oh.” That’s…dangerous. Because, really, the easy thing – maybe even the best thing – would be to walk away now and go back to worrying about him from a distance. But somehow she knows that if she turns him down now, he’ll stay as far away from her as Hell’s Kitchen permits.

(It has been months since…since before, and maybe it’s not fair of her, to take advantage of what he’s offering, but for once she’s the one who needs the safe harbor.)

“Yeah. Okay.”


	13. Epilogue

Matt’s never been one for “trust walks.” He’s not sure why, other than he has zero interest in performing for anyone. Letting other people guide him… Sometimes it’s expedient, easier to go along with than to explain yet again that he doesn’t need help. Sometimes it’s exactly what Foggy accuses it of being. And sometimes it’s about other things, about needing relationships that have nothing to do with…missions, or isolation, or the ache in his hands after he’s used some low-life as his personal punching bag.

But walking with Claire doesn’t feel like a performance (unless one counts the way he pretends this means less than it does) though he’s definitely guiding her faltering steps. It feels…(right) (natural) (calming) good, even though she’s a bundle of nerves underneath her exhaustion. Listening to her heart is like holding a butterfly in the palm of his hand. He even has a reasonable comparison in the flutter of her pulse under his fingers.

He thinks about being alone with her while she’s on edge in this way – about being the reason for the nerves and the cause of them going away – and has to redirect his thoughts. Even as tired as he is, she’s still _Claire_ and they’re in public. There’s no need for everyone to know how he feels.

Besides, everything her boss said still holds true. But Claire had been the one to set the boundaries on their relationship, such as it is. (There’s a fine line between taking advantage of someone and abusing them, and being the one responsible for drawing that line makes him uncomfortable.) Surely he can wait a little longer before stepping back. She’ll tell him when she can’t take him anymore. (She’s always had the strength to stand on her own.) He’s not being selfish if he’s providing something she wants.

“You’re being suspiciously quiet.” Claire’s voice – soft, raspy, yet beginning to mellow – breaks into his thoughts.

“Tired, remember?” Not so much physically – or at least not to a degree that isn’t familiar – but mentally. And it’s a truth that’s easier to voice than any of the others. (Namely that he owes her. And that he’s worried about her. Two statements that would have her trying to prove something no matter how she actually feels.) (He knows a few things about needing to protect weakness.)

She hums in acknowledgement and lists a little to one side as she readjusts the weight of the bag on her shoulder. He grips her arm (carefully, doing his best to avoid the fading bruises) and steadies her until her trajectory evens out. “Thanks.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to get something to eat –”

“Ask me again when you’re not feeling guilty.”

He can’t tell if that’s an offer or a dismissal. Only knows that it makes his heart start to race. “I don’t feel guilty,” he says to cover up his uncertainty.

“You’re Matt Murdock.” His name is distorted by a slight yawn; she’s too tall to rest her head on her shoulder while they walk, but her arm presses against his with more than a hint of her weight behind it. “I think feeling guilty is your guilty pleasure.”

How does she do that? How does she flay him back to the bone, peek inside him, and still sound fond? (Other people just sound…disappointed…when they realize what’s underneath…everything.) (Under the abilities.) (Under the fighting skills.) (Under the friendship.)

When he doesn’t reply, even teasingly, Claire back pedals a little. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… Well, actually I guess I did mean it that way, but I shouldn’t have said it.”

Problem is, she’s not entirely wrong. He squeezes her arm lightly in acknowledgement and keeps leading her home.

 

+

 

They’re getting close to her apartment. Claire wonders if she dares to keep being selfish. She’s already made one misstep, let her mouth run away from her when she’s practically too tired to walk and chew gum at the same time. But compared to the emotions churning through her Matt is a solid presence at her side, comforting in his silence.

“What do your friends think you’re doing?” It seems like an innocuous way to ask if he’s expected somewhere. If they’re going to miss him anytime soon. If she can steal a few more moments from him or if this is it.

“I told them I was going to go home and take a nap.”

That’s exactly what she should encourage him to do, but she doesn’t quite have it in her. She sneaks a peek at him from the corner of her eye. “A nap sounds good. What are you really going to do?”

His dimple flashes in and out of existence as quickly as his lopsided smile. “Something quiet. The last couple of days have been…”

Well, that does nothing to make her feel less selfish. Doesn’t matter if Matt offered to walk her home; he’s not one to shirk a duty. That may be all this is.

“Yeah,” she agrees softly. The last couple of days have been…(exhausting) (demoralizing) (isolating) trying.

“Claire?”

“Mmm?” Her voice won’t waver if she hums. Not that hiding that small bit of evidence will do her any good, she supposes, his hearing being what it is. But at least she can present a facsimile of calm. Lessen his sense of obligation. Make what’s coming easier.

“Check in with me?”

Ooohhh…they’re going to have to shut this down. Despite what she wants, they’re nothing but blips on each other’s radars, ships passing in the night. None of the issues that stood between them before have changed. They have to stop playing make believe.

“I’m fine.” She doesn’t even try to be subtle about the lie. “Just tired. You don’t need to worry about me.” At least the last part isn’t a lie. She is tired. Perhaps even overwrought. (Talking things over with the police certainly hadn’t helped her state of mind.) But it’s not like she’s injured. She’ll get over it.

Matt’s quiet for a long time. She can see her apartment building before he says anything. “You know I can tell when you’re lying.”

“I know.” Doesn’t change anything. If she can’t have what she craves, she’ll settle for licking her wounds in solitude.

He stops, half a block away from her apartment and… (Sanctuary.) (Peace.) (Refuge.) (Loneliness.) She stops with him, unsure if she’s completing her duty to him (by letting him walk her home) or taking advantage of him (by drawing this out). Either way she attempts to let him off the hook.

“Thanks for –”

“Don’t do that.” Matt leans his cane against the wall, reaches out to take her hands.

And she…pulls them away. Wraps her arms around herself and stares at the ground. “What do you want me to say?” she asks dully. _I’ll see you around?_ Or perhaps _It’s been a pleasure?_

“Don’t do that. Not now.”

He sounds…oh god, he’s so good at sounding genuine. Because he is. It’s one of the best and worst things about him. And she needs to quash it, and she’s not going to shy away from it. She looks at him and asks, “Don’t do what?”

He wets his lips and braces his hands on his hips and moves his jaw left and right. Twists his head like he needs to crack his neck. “Don’t shut me out.”

“It’s what we do best, isn’t it?”

She can see the impact that has on him. It’s an ugly truth, but it’s a truth nonetheless. He knows it as well as she does.

Not that Matt ever chooses to take the easy way out of anything. “Can we talk? Privately?”

She laughs breathlessly. There’s a stream of uninterested New Yorkers walking around them like they’re part of the architecture. People on phones, earbuds firmly in place. Talking, eating, laughing. But sure.

“Fine.”

 

+

 

Matt follows her up the stairs. As she unlocks the front door to her apartment she has a passing urge to tease him, ask him how it feels to come in the front door instead of through a window. But she didn’t bring him up here for that, and lightening the mood isn’t going to make what’s coming any easier for either of them. (She’s always preferred to rip band-aids off.)

She doesn’t want to do this but if she doesn’t they’re going to keep stealing little pieces of each other. (That has always been the temptation, to give a little bit more, accept a little bit more, until one of them walks away.)

He closes the door behind them, quietly. Leans his cane in the corner and braces himself as if for a fight.

She sheds her own baggage, setting her things on the floor against the wall. “You wanted to talk?”

“Can we sit down?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary. I think we both know what the other is going to say.”

“So you’re telling me I _don’t_ need to point out that you didn’t hurt me.”

A bitter, helpless smile she’s glad he can’t see stretches across her face. He’s worried about her, she gets that. And sure, he’s not wrong if you discount her complete ineptitude at relieving any of his symptoms, or the way she’d lost her mind and thrown herself at him, or the complete invasion of his privacy…

“You’re right. Pointing that out is not helpful.”

“That’s not a yes.”

“Thank you, counselor.” She picks up her bag again and goes into her bedroom. She tosses the small bag onto the bed and crouches to drag a larger one out from under it. It’s far enough out of reach that she has to drop to her knees and stretch…

Her first aid kit is sitting over in the corner, contents bulging out of its undone zippers.

Her fingers catch the handle of her overnight bag. She yanks it out and tosses it up with the other one before getting back to her feet with a soft groan. (She is so, so tired. But, miles to go before she sleeps and all that.) (Promises, though. She’s becoming more and more hemmed in by the promises she’s made to others.)

Matt hovers in her doorway while she rummages through the kit. She can feel him back there, brooding, organizing whatever arguments have occurred to him. (Frankly she’s a little surprised he’s bothering. His guilt must be needling him more than usual.) (Which probably means he’s going to level some honesty her way which will be difficult to ignore, but she’ll have to.)

The needle she dug out of his arm is half-buried in a partial roll of gauze. It’s the gauze that catches her eye at first; left in the open, no longer sanitary… She drops the entire thing in a biohazard bag and seals it, labeling it with a permanent marker she finds at the bottom of one of the outside compartments.

“Here.” Her knees creak as she stands up; she walks across the room and holds the bag out for him to take. “If you want to help you can take this to the police for me.”

Matt takes it, his mouth tight. “What is it?”

“That piece of needle I dug out of you. Sergeant Mahoney wanted me to turn it over if I could find it.”

“This is about the case.”

Of course it is. She can’t let it get personal. (Forget the very real fear of breaking each other apart piece by piece. If he stays, if she lets him give her the comfort he’s clearly trying to give, she’s going to break down entirely. Get lost in the enforced intimacy the last few days have fostered.) “Your work is all we ever had, Matt.”

His nostrils flare as he reins in his mounting irritation with her; his jaw clenches, his stance widens, and his fingers twitch as if this is something he can punch is way out of.

“I seem to remember admitting…things…to you. About how I…feel about you.” His voice is tightly controlled, but she can hear hints of the devil leaking through.

“Drugs.” Her answer is short and succinct as she turns around to start packing. _Just let it go. Please._

“What was your excuse then? Because I also remember you saying those words back to me.”

Her hands pause for a moment, before returning to their task, cramming her clothes in tightly. “If you’re asking me if I still have feelings for you…” Well, denying it would be pretty damn stupid, wouldn’t it? “But nothing else has changed either, so I don’t see the point –”

He doesn’t rush her, exactly, but he closes the distance between the door and the bed _very_ quickly. (She’s glad the bed is between them.)

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“What is…?” She throws her pajamas into the bag without regard for how much space they’ll take up. Follows them up with a couple of pairs of shorts, and… “What do you think it means, Matt? It means you pursued a case so relentlessly that someone assaulted you to get you to back off. You might have fancy body armor now but you’re as reckless as ever.”

“You were the one who told me to –” He scrapes his hands through his hair (several times) before resettling his hands on his hips. “You don’t think that’s an odd lecture to be giving considering you’ve been put on two weeks’ leave?”

(She is so, so tired. Of wanting and not having. Of helping and getting burned for it. Of biting everything back instead of expressing herself, but an angry woman gets fewer results than one who keeps the peace.)

(And mostly she’s tired of hurting.)

“I’ve been put on two weeks’ leave,” she agrees. “And last time it was telling you how to cauterize wounds with a road flare – and listening to the screams it caused. The time before that it was showing you how to use a kitchen knife to get information out of a gangster. Don’t you see anything wrong with that? When I said _nothing has changed_ , I meant it. All of it.”

She’s…she’s clearly hit all the high points of their relationship, taken the equivalent of a crash cart to his overdeveloped sense of responsibility. Claire looks away, blinks back tears and takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly. It’s amazing that she’s decided that _this_ is the path of least resistance. But he’s walked away once, and she’s returned the favor, and that’s where they are. When all the adrenaline has run its course and every day life resumes _these_ are the constants that will remain.

Well. Some of the constants. She shuffles her feet as he walks around the bed, wraps her arms around herself and _makes_ herself stand her ground. (The other constants are the way he slowly reaches out for her, his fingers pressing against her jaw delicately, as if there’s something written there for him to read. Or the way she returns the hold when his hand drops down and takes hers.)

“You’re leaving again.”

There’s an implication there, or she feels like there’s an implication there, that she doesn’t know how to address. (Doesn’t want to address because it’s too close to all of the places she hurts.) But she doesn’t want him to think that he, specifically, has driven her away either.

“I’m going to go stay with my mom for a few days.”

He nods slowly. Sadly, maybe. Or maybe she’s projecting.

“Where does your mom live?”

Claire pulls her hands away and starts straightening the mess of clothes she’d thrown heedlessly into her bag. “Umm…there’s a few blocks where Harlem and the Heights meet and sort of overlap. It’s…” It’s a good place for people who look like she does. It’s where she grew up. It’s a place to hide when she feels like anyone who looks at her will know what she’s done. “Besides, I’m hardly abandoning you.”

“You mean like last time.”

 _Oh_. Well. If she knows where his weak spots are, then so does he. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, hands falling still.

“Claire, I’m… I didn’t come here to blame you for anything.”

She shrugs. “It wasn’t hard to see that your friend was pissed off with you. I just couldn’t…” Couldn’t stay and watch him kill himself. “That’s not true this time. You have Foggy and Karen.”

“And you…you have me. Do you believe that at least?”

She does. But what that means… (Maybe if he wasn’t so damn eager to throw himself into losing battles it might mean something.) “I know.”

“And it doesn’t change anything.”

_And it doesn’t change anything._

 

+

 

Matt fidgets, hands sliding against each other, fingers tangling, one hand briefly wrapping around the opposite wrist. _Settle, Mattie._ He’d wanted very specific things, had made a plan when he’d waited on that bench for her. He was going to take Claire home, take care of her – whatever she’d needed. Sleep, a shoulder to lean on, a meal…coffee. He was going to talk to her, explain what he thought was happening. He’d known it’d be rough, that she wouldn’t want to listen. Because that’s what drop did, especially when it was your first time experiencing it.

Now that the initial…trauma…is over, she’s questioning how she’d been able to participate in it in the first place. She’s done things that Claire, as a caretaker to her core, would normally refuse to do. That he’d asked her to won’t matter in her mental calculations because she’d been the sober one.

He’d known that he’d put her through hell, forcing her to experience all that with him. But he’d thought…

He hears himself say, “I want you to go where you feel safe.”

He’d just thought it’d be with him.

The slow, heavy beating of her heart doesn’t change. She’s exhausted, probably convinced that she’s hurt him in unforgivable ways. That’ll fade, but he won’t be there to help make sense of it. (Won’t be there to keep yet another thing from getting between them.)

“I know.” Her quiet tone seems to encompass his hopes, her fears. Their reality.

“How long are you going to be gone?” He can’t help but ask, probing at the wound. Last time he hadn’t known how long she’d stayed out of the city. Hadn’t known anything until she’d left him a voice message telling him she’d moved. She’d asked – demanded – space, and he’d given it. Doesn’t seem to have helped much.

“You can call me if you need help.”

Not what he’d asked. Claire’s good at answering those questions. Better than she is at answering the ones he does ask.

“I know.”

For one fleeting moment, Claire’s hand – warm, hesitant – rests on his arm, in the crook of his elbow. And he can pretend that he’s going to lead her out of here, maybe just out to the living room where they can sit next to each other in silence. Maybe down to the bus stop she’ll need to head uptown. Maybe, impossibly, to his apartment where the only ghosts in the air are his bleeding body –

Her hand pulls away.

“I’ll take it to the station for you,” he hears himself saying. It’s the one thing she’s asked him to do. And after her session with the police he can understand her not wanting to go herself.

“Thank you.”

“Take care of yourself, Claire.”

“You too.”

 

+

 

The apartment is very quiet after Matt leaves.

Claire packs the rest of what she’ll need as quickly as possible and gets the hell out.

She manages to hold everything back until she shows up on her mama’s doorstep. But by then it’s safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, this story has been so much fun to write. So much fun that part two will be coming in a bit. I've got some other stories in the works that I'm going to spend some time on, but we're going to see the aftermath of all this still. And I'm actually really looking forward to some of the things I have planned. (You should be too.)
> 
> Also, all chapters have been updated so that they are the most current, edited versions of themselves. No huge changes, but hopefully it's made things a little smoother.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill from the dreamwidth Daredevil kink community. Original prompt can be found at http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1296.html?thread=2491920#cmt2491920


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